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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1How Conversational UI is Changing User Assistancehttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/conversational-ui-changing-user-assistance/
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 15:35:54 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156425Just a few years ago, it seemed that people would invariably favor the stability of a desktop computing environment to a mobile experience. Then smartphones came along, offering a rich user experience (UX) on top of a robust infrastructure.

People increasingly began to access information — including user assistance (UA) in the form of help, wizards, and tutorials — through their mobile devices. Content had to be short and concise to suit the smaller screens. Now conversational user interface (UI) is the new game-changer in how people interact with computers and UA experts must once again rethink how to provide integrated and seamless assistance.

User Assistance in the Intelligent Enterprise

“There’s a big shift in how people consume information that we need to take into account. For example, we need to consider providing information in new ways and devices,” says Sven Leukert, vice president of User Assistance at SAP. Studies show that a new generation of tech users is less inclined to read traditional flat-text documentation, like printed manuals.

This combination of changing user habits and digital innovations is bringing about the digital transformation of UA at a time when many SAP customers are in their own digital transformations to become intelligent enterprises. An important aspect of SAP’s strategy for the Intelligent Enterprise is to provide a UX that is integrated, consistent, and seamless across the entire organization.

“The Intelligent Enterprise strategy is about the qualities that our customers expect when using multiple SAP products together, that things are smoothly integrated and consistent as you move from one UI to the next,” says Leukert. “That’s what we need to mirror in our approach to user assistance.”

Integrated User Experience with Chatbots

SAP users have a variety of channels available for receiving assistance, including in-app help, UI texts, and more detailed information on dedicated sites like the SAP Help Portal site. To complement these more traditional channels, UA experts at SAP are beginning to deploy conversational UI technology on a limited scale in the form of chatbots. User-friendly and accessible, conversational UI is already becoming increasingly pervasive in our daily lives through our phones, cars, tablets, smart home devices, and digital assistants. As this interaction becomes more natural to people in their private lives, they expect a similar consumer-grade user experience at work too.

“People are noticing that this technology is making their lives easier, as well as more efficient and productive,” says Marianne Macgregor, a user assistance development architect at SAP who is helping to roll out chatbots enabled with UA content. “By making user assistance available in a chatbot, we can increase the user experience for people working with our software, so that they get a more user-friendly environment. They do not need to search or make their way through cross references. They get the answer immediately, which means they can carry on working.”

Given the volume and depth of SAP user documentation, however, there can be some skepticism as to whether a chatbot is “up to the task.” UA experts at SAP are careful to steer clear of the pitfalls that plagued early chatbots, some of which were perceived as intrusive, limited in their language processing and artificial intelligence (AI), or hindered by poorly designed dialog flows that dead-ended in user frustration.

It’s a matter of implementing the technology wisely, according to Leukert, who says, “We need intelligent bots that can consume our millions of information pieces and make sense of it to surface the right information in the right situation. That’s the key step that we’re working on at the moment.”

Enablement and Best Practices for Chatbot Deployment

While a simple chatbot can be deployed relatively quickly, the effort required to create the taxonomy and metadata that underpins the chatbot is time-intensive and demanding. This framework helps ensure that the content is organized clearly and enhances its findability. Best practices advise tasking a limited number of knowledgeable experts with creating the taxonomy for the entire organization. To ensure the consistency of the SAP taxonomy, SAP participates in a taxonomy board comprised of various stakeholders across the company.

SAP Conversational AI supplies the end-to-end, cloud-based chatbot platform that makes it possible to deploy a single, integrated UA chatbot that can run in SAP Co-Pilot or in other environments supported by SAP. Leveraging AI and machine learning from SAP Leonardo, the service supplies the intelligence for the chatbot to understand questions and return the correct information. Natural language processing capabilities enable the bot to respond to a wide range of language variations. A productive chatbot needs to be versed in at least 50 to 60 variations for how to say the same thing.

Designing Dialog Flows for User Acceptance

UA experts who deploy chatbots need a slightly altered skillset that combines conversational writing, technology, and an understanding of psychology. In the past, key qualifications of the job profile were to be able to write well and concisely. That’s not enough anymore, according to managers, who say UA experts must now also understand things like the concept of a taxonomy, and how to design and write for dialog flows.

To develop these skills among its employees, SAP now offers internal courses about designing chatbot conversations. One of the more difficult aspects writers will need to learn is how to design dialog flows effectively to include the many language variations for saying essentially the same thing, while infusing an appropriate amount of empathy and keeping unconscious bias in check. The psychology of chatbot interaction is extremely important to gaining user trust and acceptance. Experience has shown that UA experts cannot afford mistakes with chatbot conversations.

Register Now for UA Reloaded 19

Find out more about chatbots and conversation design at UA Reloaded 19, a bold, one-of-a-kind conference that dares technical communicators to break through to the other side of user assistance. Explore the latest innovations to create cutting-edge deliverables, including non-traditional formats like video documentation, science fiction thinking, and emerging technologies such as augmented reality and AI. UA Reloaded is being held May 15-16 at the SAP offices in St. Leon, near Heidelberg, Germany. A tekom (German Association for Technical Communication) conference supported by SAP, the event offers participants an exciting program filled with interactive lectures, deep-dive workshops, technology demos, and networking opportunities.

]]>SAP Support Portal Soars in siteIQ eBusiness Index Rankinghttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/siteiq-ebusiness-index-ranking-sap-support-portal/
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:00:06 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156315WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today said that the SAP Support Portal destination jumped to first place from 15th in Web site usability in siteIQ eBusiness Index’s 2018 online support category rankings. SAP Support Portal moved to third place from 16th place in Web site performance and rose to fourth place from 15th in Web site features, according to the rankings.

“The needs of intelligent enterprises are constantly evolving, and enterprise support must be doing the same,” said Andreas Heckmann, global senior vice president and head of support delivery, SAP Digital Business Services, SAP. “SAP has worked extensively with customers to improve and redesign the site. By providing them with a personalized and streamlined user experience, clear and concise content and navigation while maintaining a strong focus on our customers’ top tasks, we’re making sure that SAP Support Portal does more than keep up with customers’ needs – it stays one step ahead of them.”

siteIQ ranked 25 of the most prominent IT Web sites according to their ability to market, sell and support their diverse audiences. The new support design and architecture of the SAP.com site played an important role in moving SAP to the forefront of the competitive landscape in the category of online support. Specific highlights included:

Web site features: Although SAP Support Portal options have been expanded, the site’s focus on top tasks has made it easier than ever for customers to identify the functions and capabilities they need for their current situation.

Web site usability: By simplifying content, integrating search engines and aligning its user experience with other Web sites provided by SAP, SAP Support Portal now offers a streamlined experience for customers, whether they are navigating resources for the first time or exploring postpurchase support options.

Web site performance: “SAP Support Portal created a much more cohesive user experience that provides easier access to resources and appeals to current and prospective customers alike,” the report stated. This advance was seen to be the total result of improved features and overall usefulness for users.

]]>SAP Ariba Live: Three Trillion Reasons to Help the World Spend Betterhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/sap-ariba-live-spend-better/
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 13:45:32 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156630SAP Ariba Live is rightly known as the business commerce event of the year. Blown away by the innovation and diversity leadership at last year’s event, I reached out to Tifenn Dano Kwan, chief marketing officer at SAP Ariba, for the full story on the 2019 conference, being held April 1-3 in Austin, Texas.

“Customers will discover how to drive groundbreaking innovation, lead for tangible business outcomes, and thrive by building an ecosystem of key partnerships,” said Dano Kwan. “We’re providing a vision for people to bring back to their organizations so they can innovate for impact and achieve their unique business goals. Success takes clear leadership and change management, and we’re going to show attendees how we can do this together.”

Insights Lead to Business Outcomes

The three-day agenda is bursting with customer case studies, how-to educational sessions, and expert insights, including more than 140 breakout sessions. All are designed around one goal: to help procurement, supply chain, finance, accounts payable, and IT leaders earn a seat at the table with the CEO by supporting strategic organizational growth. Every attendee will gain immediately valuable information to future-proof the business. This encompasses agile workforce readiness, as well as what it takes for men and women to embrace diversity and drive pragmatic efficiencies around spend compliance and cash optimization for increased revenue.

Here’s a sampling of keynotes, forums, and breakouts that will showcase SAP Ariba customers, partners, executives, and some of the greatest thought leaders on the planet:

Barry Padgett, president of SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass: Hear how companies are racing ahead of the pack by becoming intelligent enterprises. Customers from world-class organizations will share the secrets of best-run businesses, including intelligent spend management and the importance of experience data.

Simon Sinek, visionary thinker and bestselling author: Get inspired by Sinek, who popularized the concept of why in his first TED Talk, and wrote “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.”

Diversity & Leadership Luncheon: Come for the book signings, stay for the practical insights. Among the headliners this year are Dr. Marshall Goldsmith and Sally Helgesen, both best-selling authors and renowned speakers. They’ll talk about navigating the toughest attitudinal and behavioral challenges that foster inclusive leadership in an evolving workplace. The luncheon will be followed by two special sessions:

Mind the Gap – Strategies to Overcome Gender Gap at the Workplace, featuring real-world experiences from two leading SAP programs. “Path Forward Return to Work” supports people who have paused their career for caregiving and “Activating Men for Parity” invites more men to participate in diversity and inclusion activities.

Mind Your Bias, It’s Showing – A Shift from Advocacy to Action, where you can learn how biases work and next steps for building an inclusive workplace environment.

Disruptive Innovation for Purpose, Business Impact

So much more than a technology conference, SAP Ariba Live is an inclusive, diverse community of inspired people coming together for real impact. This reverberates down to Ariba Network. For example, supplier diversity is baked into the guided buying capability and has become an industry standard. Procurement professionals — whether sourcing products, services, or people — can easily direct spend toward suppliers that reflect their company’s priorities and values, including diversity and inclusion.

Everything about SAP Ariba Live in 2019 takes the company’s commitment to business impact and championship of diversity and inclusion to a whole new level.

“People spend nearly $3 trillion on Ariba Network annually, and we want to help them spend better, one transaction at a time,” said Dano Kwan.

I hope to see you in Texas!

Follow me: @smgaler

]]>Can a Circular Economy Can Help Clean Up the Ocean?https://news.sap.com/2019/03/circular-economy-clean-ocean/
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 13:15:35 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156278Wouldn’t it be great it if we could celebrate World Water Day by waking up to a plastic-free ocean? That may sound like wishful thinking, when almost 9 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans annually. But there may be hope in sight.

The “take, make, waste” approach of the linear economy we live in has resulted in a growing shortage of raw materials and a massive pollution problem, especially when it comes to plastic. Nearly 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year, half of it for single use.

Plastics also contribute to global warming through the production of greenhouse gases when they are exposed to sunlight and degrade, as well as when they are burned. Even half a degree of warming can cause an existential crisis we can barely imagine and if we don’t halt it, we will experience extreme heat, rising sea levels, irreversible loss of all species, and massive decline in crop yields and fisheries.

But the crisis can be solved! As 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who initiated a school strike to raise awareness of global warming said in her TED talk, “We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.”

Heeding the Call

The good news is that citizens, governments, and corporations around the world do seem to be waking up, and we do have solutions.

“The climate is everyone’s responsibility,” says Hein Wagner, an inspirational ambassador for sustainable business. Blind since birth, Wagner is confident that you can achieve anything you set your mind to — even something monumental like turning the tide of climate change: “It’s not too late for each and every one of us to take steps that will help turn the tide.”

One positive result of the mounting crisis is the growing move away from a linear “take, make, waste” economy, to a circular one that aims to “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

“I’m particularly inspired by intelligent companies that maximize the use of existing assets while reducing dependence on new raw materials and minimizing waste,” says Wagner.

One such inspirational company is Melia Hotels. The chain was using 22 million plastic bottles annually but early last year the hospitality giant announced plans to eliminate single-use plastic in all its hotels by the end of 2019. The intent to reduce or eliminate high-impact waste from the ecosystem is part of the chain’s environmental strategy, which involves moving toward a circular economy model.

Another inspirational gamechanger is the Veolia Group, a global leader in water, waste, and energy management, which has adopted a circular model to protect the seas and oceans by combating land-based pollution, preventing waste from entering the ocean, and transforming plastic waste into resources. To enable efficient enterprise management, for example, Veolia Australia and New Zealand runs SAP S/4HANA as its digital core in partnership with IBM.

Leaving the Linear Mindset Behind

There is plenty of evidence showing that the world can maximize the chances of avoiding dangerous climate change by moving to a circular economy. According to the Circularity Gap Report 2019 from Netherlands-based social enterprise Circle Economy, only nine percent of the global economy is circular, meaning that only nine percent of the 92.8 billion tons of minerals, fossil fuels, metals, and biomass that enter the economy are reused annually. Circle Economy calculates that 62 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, excluding those from land use and forestry, are released during the extraction, processing, and manufacturing of goods to serve society’s needs; 38 percent are emitted in the delivery and use of products and services.

Recycling, greater resource efficiency, and circular business models offer huge opportunities to reduce emissions. A systemic approach to applying these strategies would tip the balance in the battle against global warming, the report concludes.

There is a lot of work to be done if we want to eliminate waste from the core of the world’s global business model. What’s the best way to go about it?

Sharing Data for Intelligent Solutions

Halting climate change is one the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Like Melia and Veolia, many companies around the world today are committed to achieving these goals to secure a better future for the planet, but going it alone is a hard task. Collaboration makes sense.

Click to enlarge.

One pioneer in this area is the UK Plastics Pact, a trailblazing collaborative initiative that is creating a circular economy for plastics. It brings together businesses from across the entire plastics value chain with the UK government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to tackle the scourge of plastic waste and replace single-use packaging by 2025 with reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging. The organization partnered with SAP to create the “Plastics Cloud,” a platform to collect data across the global supply chain.

“The platform is a crucial tool in addressing the problem because there’s so much information being generated within the plastics supply chain, but no single means to access that information, and no way to manage or analyze it,” says Stephen Jamieson, head of SAP Leonardo, SAP UK & Ireland. “Through informed partnerships with everyone impacted by this problem, we can use SAP Leonardo technologies, including machine learning, to share real-time data that will address responsible consumption and sustainable goals while retaining trust and privacy compliance.”

“Initiatives like the UK Plastics Pact can be very effective because they unite all stakeholders — brands, retailers, manufacturers, recyclers, NGOs, governments and local authorities — around a specific goal,” says Wagner. “And that gives us hope when it comes to tackling challenges of this magnitude.”

With enterprises like Veolia and Melia Hotels and initiatives like the UK Plastics Pact for zero waste leading the way, we may be waking up to plastic-free oceans on a World Water Day in the not too distant future.

]]>Why HCM Digitalization Matters to Midsize Businesseshttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/hcm-digitalization-matters-to-midsize-businesses/
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 12:15:59 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156404Midsize companies have talent challenges that are similar to their larger competitors – but they don’t have the time, people, and resources to address them as quickly. Yet, as the workforce grows and becomes more dispersed, traditional reliance on disconnected systems of applications, siloed data, spreadsheets, and clunky manual processes is testing the ability of human resources (HR) organizations to keep up.

Something has to change. But this doesn’t mean that every growing company is ready to invest in cloud-based human capital management (HCM) solutions right now. Unfortunately, many still need to address internal concerns on whether any update to HR processes – digital and otherwise – is sustainable enough to scale to growth and deliver long-term advantage.

To pull back the curtain and reveal the tangible value of HCM in the cloud, Forrester Research recently conducted a rigorous and objective total economic impact study of midsize businesses experienced with various solutions from SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite.

Build Up HR Capabilities for Business Growth with HCM in the Cloud

Based on in-depth interviews with and financial analysis of existing customers, Forrester revealed that midsize companies using SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite experienced a return on investment (ROI) ranging between 42 percent and 113 percent within 21 months or less. This outcome is achieved across four major HR solution areas: core HR and payroll; recruiting and onboarding; performance, goals, and compensation; and learning, succession, and development.

Total Benefits Achieved Across Major HR Solutions with SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite

1. Core HR and Payroll

Survey participants indicated savings of time and effort to handle core HR and payroll activities when compared to past practices. For example, managers and employees can access intuitive self-services that are compliant with data privacy mandates, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

These core HR and payroll capabilities in the cloud allow the workforce to take ownership of basic and strategic day-to-day tasks by tapping into increasingly efficient transactional services, a mobile-first approach, and a single source of truth enabled by real-time data. Meanwhile, the HR organization can emerge as a strategic partner that can help ensure business growth with a centralized focus on delivering solutions that increase employee engagement and ease work experiences.

2. Recruiting and Onboarding

For recruiters and hiring managers, the implementation of cloud-based HCM presents an opportunity to source, engage, and hire top talent faster when compared to manual, nonintegrated processes.

Study participants noted the flexibility to post jobs internally and externally to preferred recruitment agencies and job boards, apply Boolean database searches to internal candidate databases, and differentiate candidate sources with efficient coding. With intelligent guidance, they are also improving two-way communication with candidates through automatic e-mails. Plus, the collection of signed contracts and employee information is streamlined with a compliant pre-onboarding platform.

3. Performance, Goals, and Compensation

Instead of being overburdened with highly manual practices, such as using and exchanging spreadsheet files, surveyed midsize companies demonstrated greater alignment of compensation and appraisals.

Each employee is matched appropriately to cascading business and organizational goals. This capability helps ensure continuous improvement of workforce performance with ongoing coaching and feedback to accurately evaluate, recognize, and reward top talent.

4. Learning, Succession, and Development

The opportunity to provide employees with personalized learning plans structured around their assignment profiles, strategic succession planning, and existing skills development needs is attracting and retaining qualified individuals while supporting business growth.

According to interviewed participants, employees can learn about new products and regulations on their terms, anytime, and anywhere. HR organizations are filling critical positions quickly by identifying and retaining valuable employees and promoting leadership continuity without bias. Furthermore, training programs are auditable because certifications are automatically tracked, and electronic signatures and exam versioning are captured for regulatory and compliance purposes.

Lara Albert and Frans Smolders work in Solution Management at SAP SuccessFactors.

]]>#NameGameOn: And the Name of Munich’s New Sports Arena Is…https://news.sap.com/2019/03/sap-garden-munich-sports-arena-namegameon/
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 15:00:42 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156637The new multipurpose sports arena in the Olympiapark in Munich, Germany, now has a name: SAP Garden.

The recent #NameGameOn campaign gave sports fans and spectators around the world the chance to name the arena that will be home to the ice hockey team EHC Red Bull Munich and basketball club FC Bayern Basketball.

In the final round of the campaign, a shortlist of three favorites was put to the public vote. With 45.3 percent of the votes, SAP Garden came out on top, followed by SAP Park, with 44.8 percent of the votes, and SAP Live with 9.9 percent of the votes.

“SAP Garden is a great choice of name for the arena, which we plan on equipping with the very latest in digital technology,” explains Christian Klein, chief operating office and member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. “The #NameGameOn campaign exceeded all our expectations in terms of the general response, public opinion, and the number of creative ideas we received — including, of course, the winning name itself. SAP Garden really reflects our values and also does justice to the rich history of Munich’s Olympiapark.”

More than 10,900 ideas were submitted on www.namegameon.com between February 14 and March 4, with 5,433 sports fans from 127 countries taking part in the campaign. Once the closing date had passed, a panel of representatives from FC Bayern Basketball, EHC Red Bull München, and SAP reviewed the ideas and shortlisted three favorites. The public could then vote for their preferred name and in the end, SAP Garden was the most popular.

“The creativity of the suggestions really inspired us,” says Klein. “And we want the technology inside the arena to be just as creative. We are aware of our responsibility as a technology and innovation partner, and are committed to setting new standards in stadium technology in Munich.”

These will enrich the visitor experience when construction of the arena, due to begin later this year, reaches completion in fall 2021.

]]>AI and Machine Learning Drive Automation in Product Supporthttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/product-support-automation-ai-machine-learning/
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 13:15:10 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156413Will sophisticated algorithms and chatbots be the future of product support? How does this change the quality of support and the customer experience?

Jens Trotzky, head of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology for SAP Support, explains how AI and machine learning add value to product support and customer experience, as well as how this will help support engineers improving time to resolution and quality of answers to technical questions.

Q: What does automation in product support mean?

A: Looking at traditional processes in support, the goal has always been to address customers issues. Moving forward, the customer experience continues to be the driving force to create intelligent, automated, and simpler interactions for customers. Automation in product support therefore means to significantly shorten and accelerate the process for our customers to get to a solution, and increasingly to fill in the blanks that regularly arise from customer support interactions given that an interaction is often not the first one and therefore allows us to make use of previously exchanged information.

Q: How does it work and what roles do AI and machine learning play in this context?

A: Machine learning is the tool to unearth patterns in our customer support interaction, which allows us to identify shortcuts for customers and increasingly individualize the experience for them. In addition to that, we foster the approach to avoid looking at artificial intelligence standalone, but rather to take AI as a tool that creates value only when properly integrated into business processes.

Q: Why is this technology and functionality considered the future of support?

A: Technology enables us to make data-driven decisions; only things we can measure and back up with data will allow us to identify patterns. Given the ever-increasing demand for speed, we need to be able to classify any customer situation timely. With technology, we also enable our support organization to learn from the past to predict the future and transform the support experience into one where support can take preventative action before an issue becomes a business-impacting event.

Q: Where do chatbots come into play? Will they replace human support roles?

A: Chatbots can become an integral part of the interaction with customers, but will certainly not replace human support roles. Instead we utilize chatbots to redefine support levels. Classical first-touch support levels in the future can be handled by chatbots. This frees up more resources to address complex issues and develop preventive measures to work alongside machine learning agents to act as an early warning system to other customers. Chatbots also allow us to make relevant data available to customers by picking the best of the many sources within support.

Q: How will this affect the role of a support engineer to the benefit of the customer?

A: The way and content of human-to-human interaction will change and become much more sophisticated. Roles will likely move away from classical case workers toward roles that are even further specialized. These will allow for assessing specific types of problems in more detail, supported by data analytical capabilities, such as allowing large log files to be scanned for known issues and patterns in seconds. Specialized support engineers will thus be able to define more customized solutions that increasingly aim at reducing the customer effort as well.

Q: What is the value and key benefit of support automation for the quality and customer experience?

A: In 2018 SAP launched the first stepping stone in the journey to making incident solution matching available to all customers using SAP ONE Support Launchpad. It allows customers to create a ticket and receive recommendations while entering their technical questions into the query. This process has now been enhanced with support-side features, allowing a support engineer to find the expert for a specific ticket — thus speeding up collaboration for complex issues — and gain even deeper insight into SAP’s internal support knowledge. These are all aimed at accelerating the issue resolution for customers even further and by doing so improving the customer support experience.

Q: What automation services in AI-driven support solutions and services does SAP offer today?

A: Today, incident solution matching is available to all customers of SAP ONE Support Launchpad. Since the first go live, SAP has enhanced the service with two additional releases to help improve the accuracy of results even further. Internally, additional services are being piloted, such as to allow the prediction of the application area even better or to find the appropriate expert for a ticket based on its content. All of these are aimed at benefitting the customer.

Q: What’s next in service and support automation?

A: The next services planned link to a tighter integration of existing services. We are currently piloting automatic ways to recommend continuous quality checks service for enterprise support customers, further focusing what generates the most value for our customers. We also began an overhaul of the customer incident process in which many intelligent services will be integrated to allow newfound insight into the issue resolution process for the customer as well as accelerated processing of tickets itself.

The report ranked SAP number one overall, based on revenues. SAP was named leader in select categories, such as Tier 1 companies, EMEA and Asia geographical regions, and industries including chemicals, electronics and electrical, food and beverage, oil and gas, pharmaceutical and biotech, and retail.

]]>Innovation Services: Setting the Building Blocks to Shape the Futurehttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/innovation-services-building-blocks-shape-future/
Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:15:19 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156107Do homeowners make purchases decisions – such as windows, HVAC systems, and bath and kitchen layouts – on their own? Of course not! This is one reason why some people choose to build their home based on a fixed, yet flexible, design.

Similar logic can be applied when businesses innovate. Such projects may begin with a detailed blueprint of the technology landscape, organizational structure, and process layout. However, companies need to go even further by tapping into prebuilt software, the latest services, and proven expertise to transform in increments – allowing each delivered innovation to become a building block for the next one.

For many of our customers, this pragmatic approach is achievable through our innovation services, as part of the New SAP MaxAttention engagement model. I met with Anastasia Stauffenberg, senior innovation manager at SAP, to discuss how this service is changing how innovations are delivered with greater success than ever before.

Q: Innovation seems to be top of mind for most businesses. However, they all have a different view of what it means to innovate. What are the most common misconceptions about innovation?

A: Innovation is like building a house – it never stays the same. Rather than knocking it down and starting over again from scratch, homeowners tend to renovate their home incrementally over the years to address changes to their family and to fulfill their vision of a dream home.

Businesses often forget that innovation is an opportunity to look ahead for the next big thing in a structured way. Innovation is really a big journey of smaller changes built on top of earlier ones. It’s not a matter of turning a single idea into one outcome; it’s the blending of many ideas that creates sustainable competitive advantages and a foundation for continuous advancement.

This mindset has to be ingrained in their DNA, supported by an established methodology, a culture open to change, a set of complementary skills, and a flexible IT environment. More importantly, companies have to look from within to align innovation efforts with a long-term goal.

Q: How are our customers breaking through innovation obstacles faster than competitors with SAP Innovation Services?

A: Our services are designed to help our customers acquire a realistic innovation mindset and organizational structure at a very early stage. We prepare the groundwork for all kinds of topics that are important to the customer. For example, SAP Innovation Services can help lay the foundation for machine learning and move on-premise infrastructure to the cloud.

This experience allows customers to learn and apply new techniques, such as design thinking, to identify specific challenges and match them to their overall plans and strategic goals. With the findings from that assessment, customers can create a road map to set up their innovation factory, which helps navigate the full cycle of innovation and deliver competitive outcomes. Then, with access to our proven tools, they can visualize the right ideas and prototype those concepts for a future pilot and rollout.

Q: Can you explain how this level of guidance bridges the gap between short-term innovation and a more visionary approach?

A: A customer shared a truth that, to this day, resonates with me. He said, “Every year, technology providers and experts come up with at least three to four new software, digital trends, and buzzwords that we should consider. We know they are important topics, but we don’t understand how they fit into our goals, our culture, and our existing digital architecture.”

It’s this perception that inspired our innovation services. Our customers can sort out what these new technologies and user scenarios mean for their unique business operations, culture, and vision. They can integrate these midterm additions into their overall digital strategy in a way that accelerates and enhances their long-term transformation goals.

Although this exercise usually results in a long list of changes that can’t be done overnight, the outcomes are feasible, scalable, desirable, and viable. And above all, every decision-maker, stakeholder, and employee can better understand why adopting the chosen new technologies and processes makes sense.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll offer a real-world view of these focus topics that can help your business acquire the foundation and capabilities of an intelligent enterprise. Bookmark the series landing page and check it each week. In the meantime, read our overview of the New SAP MaxAttention program, “Customer Success for the Intelligent Enterprise,” to discover the opportunities ahead for your business. Feel free to reach out to us for more information at maxattention@sap.com.

Christian Leja is director of Solution Marketing for SAP MaxAttention. Follow him on LinkedIn.

]]>SAP Executives Named Leaders in Supply Chain and Procurement Innovation for Eighth Year in a Rowhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/supply-chain-leaders-procurement-innovation/
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 13:15:03 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156418It’s a wild time to be in business right now. Vast unpredictability – whether it be inclement weather, labor shortages, or international tariffs and regulations – is putting current supply chain strategies to the ultimate test.

As we look to the rest of 2019, organizations should expect to face many roadblocks and added pressure to evolve supply chain planning from siloed, sequential, and manual processes into a driver of pivotal business decisions.

With supply chain innovation top-of-mind for organizations across the globe, there’s never been a more exciting time for this line of business generally and within SAP specifically.

Supply Chain Leaders Take a Seat at the Table

While supply chain leaders have been viewed as supporting characters within the greater C-suite landscape historically, the current movement toward building digitally-enabled intelligent enterprises means supply chain executives actually have the greatest insight into how to create competitive differentiation within businesses.

Our supply chain leaders are a driving force in eliminating information silos to create a truly customer-first mindset, from product development to delivery. Four of our own –Hala Zeine, president of Digital Supply Chain at SAP; Hans Thalbauer, senior vice president of Digital Supply Chain and Internet of Things at SAP; Darren Koch, chief product officer at SAP Ariba; and Michael Balduino, Customer Engagement director for SAP Ariba – were all recently named to Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s 2019 Pros to Know list, affirming their central roles in delivering technology solutions that enable sustainable, responsive supply chains.

An 18-year SAP veteran, Zeine’s dedication to the organization is clear to all who know her, and her extensive expertise in supply chain operations and IT helps customers navigate today’s business challenges as they power digitally-driven global supply chains. She’s passionate about solving customers’ business problems and helping them implement solutions that enhance and support mission-critical business processes.

Under Thalbauer’s leadership, his team has released a steady stream of digital supply chain innovations, including demand management, transportation management, warehouse management, sales, inventory, and operations planning tools, response and supply management, and supply chain integrity. His role in developing new technologies enables companies to operate with increased agility, resulting in lower lead times, better customer service, and higher profitability.

As chief product officer at SAP Ariba, Koch leads SAP Ariba clients in making a full digital transformation, helping to ensure their procurement organizations are as strategic and effective as possible – beyond just a cost-savings machine. Since joining SAP Ariba, Koch has led the charge in reimagining the processes that have previously defined procurement and reworking those tasks into the digital world, delivering cloud-based procurement solutions that have made the entire sourcing process smarter, simpler, and faster.

And finally, Balduino is a true digital transformation trailblazer, assisting companies across various industries as they overcome today’s most pressing supply chain challenges. In his role, he is currently responsible for SAP Ariba’s most strategic customer relationships and regularly advises on defining and implementing various collaborative commerce strategies, processes, and technology adoption initiatives.

Businesses today are looking to adopt the technologies needed to drive customer experience and cost efficiency. Supply chain leaders have a bird’s-eye view of the entire enterprise, giving them a unique perspective on how different technologies may be implemented in multiple business areas like product quality, research and development, human resources, IT, and more.

A Recognized Industry Leader

But the momentum doesn’t stop at our industry-leading executive bench.

To succeed in this fast-paced world, organizations need to run more efficiently and intelligently, which starts with a streamlined supply chain. Fortunately, cutting-edge technologies and the right expertise can empower enterprises to accelerate that journey.

Richard Howells is vice president of Solution Management for Digital Supply Chain.

“The combination of machine intelligence and human creativity is where analytics is at its best,” said Gerrit Kazmaier, senior vice president, SAP HANA and Analytics. “With SAP Analytics Cloud, our focus is continuous innovation in a unified solution that is intuitive, powerful and designed for the business user. We continue to provide our customers with an end-to-end data and analytics approach enabling confident, data-driven decisions and intelligent processes that power better business outcomes.”

These capabilities have enabled customers such as FC Nuremberg to be more agile and transformative.

“Being data driven is critically important to football clubs,” said Dr. Mario Hamm, director of finance, FC Nuremberg. “With SAP Analytics Cloud we have transformed how we evaluate our players. Using its augmented BI capabilities, we can see what really influences player performance and what we can do to improve it.”

Enterprise Planning Features

Collaborative enterprise planning enables better business outcomes by bringing users together to align plans across the enterprise for one version of the truth. With SAP Analytics Cloud, customers can analyze, plan and predict all in one place to accelerate planning cycles and make intelligent decisions. Enhanced live connectivity to the embedded models of the SAP Business Planning and Consolidation application allows customers to leverage their existing investments and connect complex planning processes to the cloud. With new capabilities for end users, business plans can be created and adjusted within SAP Analytics Cloud and other tools, including Microsoft Excel. This allows organizations to extend and align plans in finance and across the enterprise to make the best end-to-end plan for the business.

Data and Analytics Platform

The addition of more than 100 new data sources allows users to easily connect to even more data and brings the total number of data sources to more than 250. Enhanced live connectivity allows customers to get even more value with SAP Analytics Cloud. Live access to trusted business sources such as SAP BusinessObjects solutions, the SAP HANA business data platform (on-premise and service), the SAP Business Warehouse application, SAP S/4HANA, SAP S/4HANA Cloud and the SAP Marketing Cloud solution means customers can access data where it resides without moving it to the cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud is also integrated with the SAP BW/4HANA 2.0 solution, providing customers with end-to-end analytics and data warehousing capabilities. The SAP Analytics Hub solution, delivered with SAP Analytics Cloud, offers a single point of access for all analytics content, SAP or non-SAP, no matter where it resides. These enhancements help customers simplify access to analytics scattered across their organization and provide a single version of the truth for making fact-based decisions.

As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 425,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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]]>The Consequences of Not Migrating Your HR System to the Cloudhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/consequences-not-migrating-hr-system/
Tue, 19 Mar 2019 12:15:05 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156182Cloud has dominated the technology news cycle for the past decade. Thinking back 10 years, if you asked me to rank software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud offerings on a product life-cycle stages diagram, I would have placed it somewhere near the introductory stage. There was a plethora of newcomers in the product development stage that had to overcome barriers to entry.

The cloud was a novel approach, so the producers of SaaS offerings had to educate consumers on the benefits of the cloud, gain their confidence, prove the technology worked, and, above all, provide ample evidence that the benefits outweighed the risks. After all, the success of the business depends on these critical human resources (HR) systems.

Many SaaS producers developed business cases for their cloud offering to show the value proposition to prospects and clients. These business cases focused on metrics such as the total cost of ownership and internal rate of return. The approach worked, and as the technology progressed into the latter part of the past decade there has been tremendous growth and maturity of the cloud.

It’s interesting to look at the investments made in global, cloud-based HR technology. The investment dollars have increased year-on-year, based on a report from Laroque Inc.: “Q3 [2018] surpassed all expectations for global HR technology venture capital investment, itself exceeding all of the VC we tracked in 2017 and bringing the year-to-date (YTD) 2018 dollar volume to nearly triple what was invested last year.”

What Are the Consequences of Not Moving to the Cloud?

While business cases do provide solid financial evidence of the value of the cloud, many do not include the opportunity cost, or the value of the action that you do not choose when deciding between two possible options. There is additional value that may not always be captured in the business case:

Advanced features: Newer technologies are born in the cloud using software frameworks or platforms developed for the cloud. If the investment dollars are going to the cloud, then the legacy, on-premise systems are not getting the development budget.

Core competencies: In some cases, a business uses its software development factories to develop homegrown HR systems. Rather than building data centers and acquiring software developers to support a homegrown HR information system, the business can focus on what it does best.

Automation: Everyone in the organization can benefit from the automation of common tasks being performed manually.

According to a SHRM article that looked at the top 2019 HR tech trends, the features predicted to provide value to business include tools to measure engagement and artificial intelligence-based “nudges,” or recommended actions delivered to employees like “take a break.” Access to these features can benefit a company’s brand as well, which is difficult to put financial value on.

While is it possible to develop these features in-house or wait for a legacy system to be updated with these features, it is not likely there will be significant investment in on-premise applications. Cloud technology is in investment mode, and older, legacy technology is in maintenance mode.

Companies relying on legacy systems and manual processes are not as efficient and are likely spending more money while getting fewer features than if they went to a cloud offering. Technology is a means, not the end. A smart business focuses on its core competency and leverages technology to amplify its business.

What Approach Should a Business Take If They Want To Go To the Cloud?

Many businesses can go directly to the cloud, but for those large enterprises with legacy technology a hybrid cloud model is a great option. No matter what, the path to the cloud requires an analysis of the current business situation, a vision for a future state, and a plan to accomplish the vision. For a large, complex business, the path to the cloud is not always a direct lift and shift. There should be diligence to determine the functions that should go to the cloud first, second, third, and so forth. Many organizations will move core HR to the cloud first, then run in a hybrid cloud model, and incrementally move other HR functions to the cloud.

Conclusion

The move to cloud all boils down to the business case or opportunity that is opened through a new business model. Businesses are measured and judged based on financial performance. Investors want to see efficient use of capital and low operational expense. With the cloud, businesses are seeking to take cost out of the equation by maximizing on-premise data centers, discontinuing investment in homegrown solutions, automating common tasks, and focusing on core competencies.

Each business will have to look at its current situation, perform due diligence, and then make an educated decision on the optimal path to the cloud, hopefully thinking twice about the opportunity cost of not moving to the cloud.

John M. Hawkins is a senior director at SAP SuccessFactors. Find him on Twitter at @hawkinsjohn.

]]>ERP at Simplon: SAP Business ByDesign, Not Spreadsheetshttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/erp-simplon-business-bydesign-not-spreadsheets/
Mon, 18 Mar 2019 13:15:00 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156098“A few members of the family that founded Simplon were the only ones who knew how everything at the company worked. We were essentially dependent on them,” explains Markus Geiger, director and CFO at Simplon.

This statement highlights just how much of a journey Simplon had to go on to bring its technology up to date – which makes the speed at which it did it even more impressive. But let’s not skip to the end of the story.

This is the second part in a four-part series about business management using a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and the opportunities this creates. Here, we look at Simplon’s original IT setup and its decision to implement SAP Business ByDesign.

From the customer’s perspective, the processes at Simplon, a bike manufacturer based on the shores of Lake Constance in Austria, were state-of-the-art before the project started. The existing ERP solution already enabled them to configure bikes online. But the processes behind the configuration tool were extremely arduous and complex because of multiple disconnects between the interfaces. These processes incorporated an array of solutions that, at best, were only partly integrated with each other – a lot was controlled manually rather than digitally.

From Excel to SAP Business ByDesign

The old ERP system could only record orders and process billing documents, and it had to be rebuilt every year because the data was stored in different places. The back end was an SQL database and Microsoft Access served as the front end. The only way to import purchase order data into the system was through a separate interface. The resource planning and accounting systems were not integrated either, so data had to be laboriously transferred using interfaces, too.

Microsoft Excel was like a second ERP system, used for procurement and costing. “And because the data was stored in more than one place, there were times when we didn’t have a component in stock. This meant that assembling a bike often took longer than we wanted it to,” explains Geiger. On the other hand, it would not have made sense for the company to stockpile parts in its warehouse – first because of the high cost this entails and second because the business is seasonal. For example, this year’s Shimano gear sets are different to last year’s ones.

Because of this setup, Simplon was not just limited when it came to the number of parts it could stock. It was also restricted by how much it could expand its portfolio and was unable to tap into new markets – it would not have been able to stay on top of the changes that were necessary; the warehousing risk would have been too high.

Geiger admits that he had been “quite shocked” by the processes when he joined the company three years ago. “We would not have been able to grow if we had not implemented SAP.”

In the End, There Were Three Options

Everyone at Simplon agreed that the company needed a single, integrated ERP system. The question was which one? Integrating the online bike configuration tool was one of the main requirements of the new system. The logic behind this tool is quite complex: If the customer changes a bike’s suspension fork, the bike’s brake system might have to be changed as well, which would then mean that the guard would also need changing and so on. “We quickly realized that few systems would be able to handle this,” says Geiger. In the end, three options were left – and two of them were SAP products.

The company chose SAP Business ByDesign firstly because, although it was cheaper than the other systems, it was still capable of supporting and keeping up with the growth that Simplon had forecast for the coming years. And secondly, the solution provided everything that the business required on a day-to-day basis: server capacity, backups, security, data protection tools, and so on. Geiger thinks that a large, on-premise solution would have been too much for Simplon: “We don’t want to employ two people just to look after the server. We want to build bikes.”

In SAP’s solution for medium-sized companies, Simplon had found the right ERP package for its needs. But when it comes to projects like these, finding a suitable implementation partner is just as important as choosing the software.

Next week, we look at why Simplon picked B4B Solutions, a subsidiary of the All for One Steeb Group, and why the new solution had to go live after only 13 months – whatever the cost.

]]>We Are Family Foundation and SAP Celebrate 11 Years of Teen Social Entrepreneurshiphttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/we-are-family-foundation-sap-teen-social-entrepreneurship/
Fri, 15 Mar 2019 14:15:13 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156297Last week, more than 100 countries around the world celebrated International Women’s Day. While it was a celebration for some, the day also served as a stark reminder of the gender inequalities that exist around the world.

In Burkina Faso, for example, just three days before International Women’s Day, the United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) released a report detailing a grim state of affairs for this young west African nation. The UN describes ongoing violence and extremism, including incidents of genital mutilation, large-scale school closures depriving approximately 150,000 children of education, and overwhelming food insecurity. More than 70,000 people — mostly women and children — have begun fleeing their homes in the last two months alone as a result.

How do we begin to tackle gender equality when many are struggling to have their basic needs met? UNICEF shares that life-skills education has been instrumental in helping people to cope and adapt during these uncertain times in Burkina Faso.

Enter Anna Pertl

From food and water security to quality education and decent work, inequities like those described today in Burkina Faso can be difficult to imagine, especially if you have not experienced them yourself. But taking action and advocating for others has never been an issue for Anna Pertl.

Now 17, Anna founded One Women One Garden at 15, after becoming fed up with the socioeconomic disparities between women and men in Burkina Faso. As a teen social entrepreneur, her organization has helped more than 5,000 women achieve economic stability despite tumultuous conditions that exist today. What began with an only some seeds in fertilizer has transformed into an economically viable, self-sustaining business that allows women to break free from the cycle of poverty.

Anna has been recognized and selected as one of 32 teenagers from around the world who will participate in the 2019 We Are Family Foundation Three Dot Dash social entrepreneurship incubator.

This week, the 32 teen leaders convened in New York City to kick off the 11th Annual Three Dot Dash Just Peace Summit. The global teen leaders represent 15 countries on six continents and they aren’t waiting around for anyone else to lead the way. They are forging their own path, taking complicated global issues into their own hands — and they are succeeding. This global cohort of social entrepreneurs was carefully selected from hundreds of applicants. They are innovating technology and harnessing creativity to keep our water systems clean, rethink approaches to cancer research, put youth at the forefront of civic engagement, transform urban forestry industries, and use machine learning to tackle modern day crises, among other vital challenges.

We Are Family

Legendary musician Nile Rodgers also knows a thing or two about forging one’s own path. He has successfully used his platform in the arts to convey the importance of creating a global family that fosters social innovation to help achieve world peace. As founder and chairman of We Are Family Foundation, Rodgers is nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world.

“Just listening to their voices and their ideas gives me a huge amount of hope,” he shares. “With their innovative and creative minds, they are changing the world for the better of all of us on the planet. We are honored again this year to have SAP as our partner to nurture and support the new generation of socially conscious humans.”

A Lesson for SAP in Reverse-Mentoring

SAP has a lot to learn from entrepreneurs like Anna, who is taking One Women One Garden to the next level with the help of technology. Anna is creating a cell phone platform that will help women connect, exchange experiences, and make digital purchases of garden resources — ultimately creating a network of women throughout Burkina Faso to further empower each other.

We are inspired by these global teen leaders’ efforts and seek to inspire them in return.

“It is an honor to partner with We Are Family Foundation and support its Three Dot Dash global teen leader initiative,” shares Alexandra van der Ploeg, head of Global Corporate Social Responsibility for SAP. “Our organizations are committed to equipping young people like the global teen leaders with the skills needed to tackle society’s problems and to turn the world’s greatest challenges into our biggest opportunities. The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and it is our duty to make them ready for what lies ahead.”

This week’s kick-off in New York City is a crash course for the global teen leaders in what lies ahead of them throughout this incubator. Creativity, hard work, networking, skill development, and, of course, accelerated social impact. Alongside Three Dot Dash mentors, SAP will also help the cohort absorb vital 21st century skills as presented in the Learning for Life portfolio while also helping the global teen leaders gain access to new markets and global ecosystems.

SAP is committed to helping every business become a best-run business, and being the best means making a difference. It means connecting people and information to address the world’s biggest challenges. When we accelerate the outcomes and impact of social enterprises like One Woman One Garden, we are helping the world’s economy, society, and environment prosper.

As SAP CEO Bill McDermott often says, “Being a purpose-driven company is more about who you dedicate yourself to than what you achieve.” That’s what this program is all about. SAP hopes to play a small part in creating an incredible experience for — and accelerating the impact of — these 32 13- to 19-year-old entrepreneurs. Because we’re confident that these are the leaders who will continue to play a large role in helping the world run better and improving people’s lives.

About We Are Family Foundation

We Are Family Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded by legendary musician Nile Rodgers and is dedicated to the visions of a global family by creating programs that promote cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents and ideas of young people who are positively changing the world.

About Three Dot Dash

Three Dot Dash is a global youth initiative of We Are Family Foundation (WAFF) inspired by the late New York Times best-selling poet and peacemaker, 13-year-old Mattie J.T. Stepanek. It is a year-long social entrepreneur incubator and mentoring program designed to amplify the work of young people successfully addressing issues related to basic human needs (education, environment, food, health, safety, shelter, water), and having a positive impact on our global communities. “Peace is possible if our basic human needs are met.” – Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Learning for Life is an inclusive education, training, and workforce-readiness initiative from SAP. With a portfolio of more than 30 digital literacy programs, Learning for Life opens opportunities and changes people’s lives by ensuring everyone — regardless of age or background — has the relevant skills to thrive, innovate, and secure meaningful work in a digital world. Learning for Life focuses on three areas to equip people with digital skills: 1) preparing the future workforce; 2) reskilling today’s workforce; and 3) ensuring access for all. By putting people at the heart of digital transformation, Learning for Life embodies SAP’s commitment to building an inclusive, skilled workforce to power the digital enterprise. Together, we can help the world run better and improve people’s lives.

]]>Celebrating Women’s History Month by Scaling Impact for a Global Gender Agendahttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/female-leaders-global-gender-agenda/
Fri, 15 Mar 2019 13:15:41 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156298Earlier this year, the SAP Next-Gen program announced a global gender agenda, showcasing how women lead the way in public-private partnerships. In February and early March, SAP Next-Gen worked to scale the impact of this agenda at events featuring leaders from industry, academia, startups, government, sports organizations, and partners.

Fostering Gender Equality in Sports

Last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, SAP Next-Gen and The Female Quotient spotlighted gender equality in sports. The FQ Equality Lounge @ NBA All Star 2019 created a space for female leaders — in Charlotte and beyond — to unpack where their bravery comes from, what motivates them, and why it’s important to take risks. The voices of leaders inspired an audience of female athletes and supporters to tap into the power of perseverance, explaining how passion fuels success and how some of the best learning opportunities are borne from failures.

“When you add more women to any equation, the equation gets better,” said Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient. “We hosted the FQ Equality Lounge at NBA All-Star because it’s an amazing opportunity to bring visibility to women both on and off the court, encourage collaboration between change agents for greater impact, and activate solutions for advancing parity.”

“SAP Next-Gen shares a joint passion with The Female Quotient for pushing for progress in gender equality in the sports world and beyond,” said Ann Rosenberg, senior vice president and global head of SAP Next-Gen. “At NBA All Star 2019 we shared a call to action to join the movement to foster female leaders across all walks of life, including sports.”

Tapping the Creativity of Women and the Power of Science Fiction Thinking

SAP Next-Gen also joined forces with The Female Quotient at MWC19 in Barcelona, Spain. Panel discussions during the event at the FQ Lounge – Home of Equality @ MWC19 highlighted diverse perspectives of next-generation female innovators.

The panel “Why and How We’re Rewriting the Rules of the Workplace” covered how, as more women come into leadership roles, visionary organizations are ensuring their influence helps create a more inclusive workplace that can accelerate innovation linked to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In “The Leaders of Tomorrow: Advancing the Next Generation of Talent,” Rosenberg shared that due to shifting demographics and new technology, the future of work will include jobs that do not yet exist. She invited individuals to join in public-private partnerships to foster the next generation of purpose-driven leadership for the future.

Rosenberg also introduced the MWC19 audience to her book, Science Fiction – A Starship Enterprise for Innovation, and discussed how with science fiction thinking, innovators can think beyond limitations and imagine the future of industries. Leveraging digital technologies — such as machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality and virtual reality, robotics, drones, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud — can create a future where the SDGs are realized.

Driving a Global Gender Agenda

At South by Southwest (SXSW), SAP Next-Gen accelerated its global gender agenda through a series of engaging activations at the SAP House at Trinity & Second and the FQ Lounge, Home of Equality at SXSW. Here, SAP Next-Gen urged becoming part of driving a purpose-driven community that fosters young female innovators and encourages young women and girls to pursue STEAM education.

“On International Women’s Day at SXSW, together with the Female Quotient, we were proud to announce the launch of the FQ app to connect a network focused on empowering women and girls in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship linked to the SDGs,” said Rosenberg. “The app provides a platform for next-generation female leaders to join events, be inspired by new stories in the community, find a nearby FQ Lounge, Home of Equality on Campus, and get educated on STEAM topics to help them become purpose-driven innovators.”

Together with The Female Quotient, SAP Next-Gen launched the FQ app.

The Next Generation of Female Data Scientists

As part of a global collaboration with the Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference, SAP Next-Gen is hosting more than 40 WiDS regional events in 2019. Through keynotes and panel discussions, participants learn how they can join a global movement to inspire and educate the next generation of data scientists and support women in the field.

It’s a problem that’s also getting worse, according to Circle Economy, a global organization dedicated to the creation of practical and scalable sustainability solutions around creating a circular economy in which everything we consume gets repurposed and reused.

Last year, the global demand for resources was 1.7 times more than what the Earth can support, and at current rates we’d need two Earths to support consumption needs by 2030. Other statistics paint a similarly bleak picture:

SAP is teaming with Google Cloud to spur innovation around Goal 12 on that list: to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns. The two companies are hosting a new Circular Economy 2030 competition that seeks to attract and reward social entrepreneurs who create innovative solutions on how to reuse, recycle, and repurpose.

The contest, which has a March 17 deadline to submit applications, seeks proposals for a revenue-generating idea that uses both Google Cloud and SAP solutions to advance a circular economy. Five finalists will be selected and announced at the Google Cloud Next Conference, taking place April 9 to 11. Finalists will be invited to participate in an in-person hackathon to be held April 12 in San Francisco for the chance to win over $100,000 in prize money and benefits, participation in Google Cloud for Startups’ Bootcamp, plus one-on-one mentorship. The remaining four finalists will each receive $25,000 in prize money. The grand prize winner will be announced at the SAPPHIRE NOW conference on May 7.

Economic Growth Through Purpose-Led Business

One impetus for the contest is to demonstrate that sustainability and profitability do not have to be mutually exclusive concepts, that you can create economic value and contribute to a more environmentally friendly planet at the same time. In fact, the circular economy could unlock $4.5 trillion in economic growth, according to Accenture.

“The circular economy is about creating economic prosperity with social well-being as a key component of that output,” said Alicia Tillman, chief marketing officer of SAP. “The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are the single best framework for creating social, economic, and environmental change in the world. When we can have a benchmark to work toward, it allows us to collaborate, drive impact, and have success.”

“In this case, we have two fantastic brands — SAP and Google — working toward a common purpose,” Tillman added. “We are already receiving lots of applications with great ideas on how to leverage technology, including artificial intelligence and IoT, to create more sustainable processes that reduce our consumption and make the world a better place to live.”

The Circular Economy 2030 contest is just one of many initiatives SAP is undertaking to reduce consumption and increase reuse of resources, according to Adaire Fox-Martin, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Global Customer Operations. The company recently joined the Global Battery Alliance, an organization focused on the responsible production, transport, sale, use, reuse, recycling, and resource recovery of transportation, industrial, and stationary batteries and other energy storage devices.

“I am delighted to see that the participants of the Circular Economy 2030 contest have shown laser focus on addressing some of the world’s greatest issues,” said Fox-Martin. “The private sector has a leading role in effecting positive social and environmental change. The very definition of value in the business world is evolving, and positive social impact is a significant and growing part of it.”

“This belief is deeply rooted in SAP’s culture and is the driving force behind our social intrapreneurship program, SAP One Billion Lives. We created it with the aim to improve 1 billion lives by developing a portfolio of sustainable, shared-value impact ventures through the best we have to offer – our people, technology, and a vast ecosystem. In three years since its launch, the program has delivered impact at scale in healthcare, disaster mitigation, and relief and many other areas,” she explained.

“SAP is mobilizing our talent, technology and vast ecosystem to demonstrate that commercial success and social impact can and should co-exist,” said Fox-Martin. “The Circular Economy contest and programs such as SAP One Billion Lives are two of many powerful examples. Last year, we entered into a partnership with Social Enterprise World Forum to scale the growth and development of the social enterprise sector globally. Investing in social enterprises, which uphold the social or environmental mission through sound business models, is one of the most effective ways to build a more equitable and sustainable economy.”

]]>Making Future Work with the Workforce Evolution Designerhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/future-work-workforce-evolution-designer/
Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:15:55 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155933In a world of unrelenting change, smart leaders recognize that change is coming. More than ever, they want to be prepared for an unpredictable future. But, businesses need help directing their attention to tomorrow’s tomorrow and creating a future-ready organization.

SAP is now working with Zukunftsagenten, a software innovation and organizational development consulting company based in Germany, to do just that. With the Workforce Evolution Designer cloud solution from Zukunftsagenten, companies can develop a clear image of their future business, analyze the gaps, and develop a plan for getting there. By taking a proactive approach, leaders can now work to make sure the future doesn’t catch them by surprise.

Proactively Creating Your Company’s Future

With the Workforce Evolution solution available in the SAP App Center, you start by choosing the megatrends that will have the biggest impact on your business. The solution then builds a number of hypothetical scenarios for how these megatrends will impact your specific industry and sector. Based on these scenarios, you define a future vision for your business. You picture what your business could look like years from now, exploring the tasks people will need to do and the roles that need to be established to achieve that future. The solution helps your organization sort those tasks and roles into “work clusters” so you can decide what to prioritize. Here, machine learning helps by giving recommendations for roles and skills your business will need in the future. Now, you explore the status quo. What roles, jobs, and tasks are people doing today and why? What gaps are there? The solution then helps you reverse-engineer your future by making recommendations on how close the gaps. You involve your workforce all along the way in exploring, understanding, and designing your workforce evolution, essentially creating an ever-evolving enterprise.

Every Business Transformation is a People Transformation

Technology won’t transform your business – your people will. Technology is a powerful enabler of business transformation, but your people are the drivers. That’s why SAP is working with Zukunftsagenten. We understand that ‘making future work’ means putting people at the center of your business transformation, using technology to enable them to achieve their full potential.

Today’s human resources (HR) software is a powerful tool for administrating a workforce and maximizing people performance through extrinsic motivators, such as salary, benefits, and career advancement. But does it create workplaces where people passionately contribute, delight customers, solve big problems, and innovate to drive your future business? Businesses today need to sense and respond to employees’ intrinsic needs. That’s what it takes to attract, retain, and enable people to create extraordinary results. Our software solutions work to create workplaces that enable people to contribute in ways that satisfy their intrinsic need for purpose and well-being. We understand that a radical paradigm shift in business is necessary to get there, and we have the software development expertise to make it happen.

SAP SuccessFactors Work-Life is the first in a series of solutions designed to create this essential human revolution in business. Employers are increasingly investing in health and well-being. But they have primarily targeted specific aspects of employee health or made programs available through a benefits portfolio. Existing approaches are usually standalone tools to help individuals improve their well-being. What they do not change is the culture, practices, job conditions, or team norms that cause well-being challenges. We have a unique opportunity to change workplace cultures by providing a fully integrated well-being platform that offers employees well-being coaching and helps organizations proactively cultivate a culture that fosters well-being. We aim to be the first global technology provider to enable a culture of well-being for both customers and our employees, using our unrivaled global reach to create high-performing organizations and healthier, more engaging workplaces. Our vision is to create workplaces where people thrive, not merely survive.

In the Forrester survey of more than 740 respondents commissioned by SAP, up to 93 percent of companies agree that innovation technologies are key to achieving their digital transformation goals. To qualify to participate in this study, companies had to meet two important criteria: first, they had to be actively undergoing digital transformation, and second, they must have implemented at least two innovation technologies such as machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and augmented or virtual reality.

The study found that as companies seek competitive advantages, they are prioritizing innovation technologies. As such, these companies are implementing or have already implemented innovation technologies to drive digital transformation:

The IoT: 92 percent

AI: 78 percent

Machine learning: 77 percent

Augmented reality/virtual reality: 70 percent

Blockchain: 68 percent

The study also found that as digital transformation journeys continue to be a priority for enterprises, organizations are increasingly optimizing existing processes to improve efficiency, extending processes to capture new value, and transforming business models to gain new revenue streams. According to the study, 92 percent of companies showed a high interest in platforms that can unify data collected by, and used across, all intelligent technologies and business processes.

Based on the results, different industries are focused on different priorities and leveraging multiple intelligent technologies, according to their varying levels of digital maturity and unique business goals. For example, most discrete manufacturers are prioritizing implementing or expanding predictive maintenance efforts. In comparison, retailers are primarily focused on using Big Data and predictive analytics to make assortment decisions, and utility companies are applying a digital boardroom where executives can see real-time capacity or efficiency rates.

“By partnering with Forrester on this intelligent enterprise study, we were able to uncover some of the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing new technologies,” said Irfan Khan, president, SAP Platform & Technologies, Global Customer Operations. “The study found that as companies seek competitive advantages, they are prioritizing innovation technologies. We are seeing businesses use the IoT, AI, augmented reality, ML and blockchain to improve processes, drive innovation and meet digital transformation objectives.”

As the study states, “Intelligent enterprises win in the digital era. An intelligent enterprise is an entity connecting people, processes, data and technologies as a means to accelerate digital transformation, doing more with less, improving customer engagement and inventing new revenue streams.” Find out more about this study here.

]]>Rohrer Group: Industry Services Specialist Goes Live with SAP S/4HANA Cloudhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/rohrer-group-sap-s4hana-cloud/
Thu, 14 Mar 2019 12:15:00 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156084Midmarket enterprise Rohrer Group, an industrial services provider for the oil and chemical industry, is currently in the process of migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. It’s a prerequisite move in the eyes of its customers that likewise rely on intelligent technologies and uniform standards. Yet it was also clear to the company internally that its old systems had reached their limits.

“We are doomed to grow,” quips 65-year-old Johann Rohrer, the epitome of Austrian equanimity. “We” being his family-run company, which he founded back in 1975 with a staff of two. Today, more than 3,500 employees in 14 countries work for Rohrer Group. The conglomerate cleans and repairs tanks and barrels as well as manages plant downtimes. It provides the majority of the required services from a single source in an often challenging business environment that demands a keen awareness of safety and security – including efficient, secure handing of data.

To help keep pace with continued growth, Rohrer decided to migrate to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. “The move is a no-brainer,” he points out. Rohrer Group expects to go live with the new system in Austria on April 1, just in time for the new fiscal year.

Rohrer Group’s clientele includes a number of big-name customers, such as BASF, Shell, voestalpine, and OMV. “We can’t afford to make a mistake because if we do, our customers won’t be able to get their plants up and running again on time,” Rohrer says. “And that can mean millions in lost business.” What’s more, these customers, themselves SAP software users, insist on data transfer via SAP. As a service provider, Rohrer Group plays a pivotal role in its ecosystem of customers and partners. Migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud is meant to accelerate and simplify data exchange within that ecosystem. “We can then dock our systems onto those of our customers,” Rohrer explains.

Uniform Processes Across 45 Locations

Customers were, of course, a driving factor in the decision to migrate, but internal aspects played a role, too. Michael Friess, business developer and migration project lead at Rohrer Group, explains “standardization.” He plans to standardize the processes across Rohrer Group’s 45 locations in Europe. It all started, he recalls, when the Controlling department in Niklasdorf, Austria began sounding the alarm bells. The old system was no longer able to keep up. The company needed to consolidate the systems for greater transparency.

Back then, Rohrer’s specialists in different countries did not use the same accounting and materials management systems. As such, invoices were handled multiple times and a lot of tasks were done manually – there was plenty of room for improvement. Switching to SAP solutions meant having a comprehensive, unified system that could digitalize and simplify Rohrer’s processes.

“SAP’s global reach was the ultimate selling point when it came time to choosing our provider,” Friess says.

As project lead, Friess then called on certified Viennese specialist and SAP gold partner S&T for help with the operational implementation. A “young and euphoric partner,” he notes, grinning. As it should be – after all, the technology behind SAP S/4HANA Cloud is, too. But it’s early days yet, so the proportion of SAP users who have migrated to the new cloud platform is still relatively small. “In five years time, though, things will look very different,” Michael Perfler, SAP Business Unit manager at S&T, says.

Communication Matters Most

According to Friess, the core project team is made up of 10 decision makers from specialist departments, management, IT, and the external partner S&T. What makes their collaboration so successful? Communication, he says.

Friess has set up fixed day meetings, calls his team regularly, and talks to everyone involved on all levels. All of which is only possible because the company has managed – despite an annual turnover of €350 million – to retain an owner-operated, midsize structure. “At Rohrer Group, the hierarchies are flat and the decision-making processes short,” he explains. It also has an extremely committed founder, as evidenced in the workshops leading up to the rollout. “Mr. Rohrer was always present. He’d ask us over coffee how we were progressing and where we stood,” Perfler recalls.

Perfler’s enthusiasm for innovative technology is palpable, contagious even – perfect for his role as technical specialist on the team. Rohrer, meanwhile, still conveys the same level-headedness he did when he founded the company 45 years earlier. “Migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud will take a few years,” Rohrer remarks. “And the project isn’t generating new revenue.” Yet that’s not an issue right now. Rohrer’s top priority at this point is establishing unified standards and driving harmonization with customer systems. Rohrer Group plans to roll out the new solution across all its subsidiaries, both nationally and abroad. It’s first stops are Austria, France, and Romania. Migration there is expected to take just a few months, and, if all goes to plan, further countries will follow in batches every six months after that.

Customer requirements have always been the driving force behind the group’s business activities. As such, it has more or less expanded non-stop since its inception, the latest addition being Rohrer Suisse AG in 2018. Friess puts it this way: “This migration is basically the next dimension in our digital evolution.” This is also why he chose not to set up a dedicated change management process for the project. After all, Rohrer is changing all the time. You could say, the company is doomed to grow.

]]>Keeping the Entrepreneurial Spark Alive in a Big Companyhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/keeping-entrepreneurial-spark-alive-intrapreneurship/
Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:15:49 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155484As a serial entrepreneur in Israel, Vitaly Vainer built and sold several successful businesses. But after the birth of his first child, he wanted a more stable, corporate environment and joined SAP in 2007.

That doesn’t mean he left behind his entrepreneurial spirit. While spearheading product development for flagship products like SAP Fiori Cloud, he mentored outside startups.

Now, almost 12 years later, Vainer is the general manager of Dabra, a startup within SAP. Vainer says, “We worked on different ideas for about a year, all focused on the future of work.” The team of four people, all based in Ra’anana, Israel, submitted a proposal to SAP.iO to create an application that would foster stronger workplace relationships, which included a chatbot integration with Slack.

SAP.iO is a business unit within SAP that supports internal and external innovators. The SAP.iO Venture Studio program provides funding and other resources for SAP intrapreneurs, or an entrepreneur within a larger organization, like Vainer. Once accepted into the program, the Dabra team received seed funding, executive mentorship, and, most importantly, the ability to focus 100 percent on creating a meaningful solution that was adopted.

“We created the chatbot on Slack within 45 days but there wasn’t significant usage. So we shut it down and came up with the idea to bring a bot into Outlook email and calendaring functions,” says Vainer. The team also refined its audience, focusing on users who have a lot of 1:1 meetings, like chief operating officers.

Since its release in October 2018, Dabra software by SAP has attracted almost 1,300 users, one-third of whom are outside of SAP. With almost six months left of support from SAP.iO, Vainer hopes Dabra’s funding is extended so that they can keep growing adoption.

With successes like Dabra and project management and collaboration platform Ruum by SAP, SAP.iO understands how to keep the entrepreneurial spark alive in a big company. SAP.iO recently held a series of educational events for its innovators and executive mentors. Below are some tips from participants about how larger organizations can nurture intrapreneurship.

Empowerment, Autonomy, Accountability

Max Wessel heads up the New Ventures and Technologies unit at SAP and is managing director of SAP Silicon Valley. After starting his career in product development at three venture-backed startups and a stint as a venture capitalist, he moved from Sapphire Ventures, an independent venture capital firm funded by SAP, to found SAP.iO Venture Studio.

“In the valley, there are a lot of conversations about investment and funding rounds,” he says. “But supporting intrapreneurs is really about empowerment and autonomy. It’s about creating an entire system to give authority to the CEO, with some checks, and a system to empower employees to own their business.”

Wessel explains that it’s not capital and personal wealth that motivates people, it’s the drive to solve a big problem. He designed SAP.iO Venture Studio to give employees the runway to do that, but they are also held accountable to a board of executive advisors, who act like a board of directors. They must meet targets and provide transparency into their progress.

The Studio Model: Nurture with the Right Resources

Graham Ratcliffe came to SAP two years ago through its acquisition of Abakus, which helps companies optimize marketing spend. Ratcliffe, who co-founded Abakus, took the reigns as the new general manager of SAP.iO at the start of this month.

He believes the studio model employed by SAP.iO is critical in helping to support emerging ventures within SAP and turn them into sustainable enterprises. “Once we invest in ideas, we have a studio team to give them a leg up and help with design, product development, and engineering,” he says. “Those are hard things to hire early on, so our studio provides them to entrepreneurs to help them get going until they’re able to build their own team.”

Full-Time Intrapreneurs

As Wessel points out, Google’s famous 80/20 mantra, where employees can spend 20 percent of their time on innovation, was not sustainable for entrepreneurship. “People still had their day jobs, so it turned into 120 percent.” So he set things up differently at SAP.iO. When teams are accepted into the SAP.iO Venture Studio program, employees can dedicate themselves 100 percent to creating a new product and launching their company.

That makes all the difference for many employees. Vainer says, “Working full time on Dabra allowed us to create our solution much faster. We had time to develop, fail, and then come up with new solutions.”

Protect Innovation and Innovators

Finally, for intrapreneurship to flourish in a big company it’s important to provide a haven for innovators that is separate from everyday business. Dabra operates separately within SAP.iO, and as a result Vainer says, “Compared to innovation in the regular product development cycle, it is a huge change. We can use any technology we want and we’re able to make financial decisions much faster.”

Rooly Eliezerov is an advisor for Dabra and entrepreneur who co-founded Gigya, the customer privacy company acquired by SAP in 2017. “The only way to maintain a startup mindset is to have an organization that’s walled off from the bigger company,” he says. “That’s why SAP.iO is great, because it helps to foster the startup mindset where it exists versus teaching it. You can’t teach a startup mindset, but you can help nurture it.”

]]>SAP Takes Over #SXSWhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/sap-takes-over-sxsw/
Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:40:15 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156171SAP’s first-ever appearance at South by Southwest (SXSW) from March 8-11 in Austin, Texas, was a hit!

If you are unfamiliar with SXSW, it is an annual technology, film, interactive media, and music festival that attracts over 400,000 attendees and more than 4,000 media, influencer, and celebrity personalities. The event provided SAP a unique opportunity to access a new demographic while increasing our brand awareness at one of today’s most exciting events.

SAP took over Café Blue, a restaurant with a large patio space and prime location across from the main entrance to the conference center. Coined the SAP House at Trinity & Second, the space was transformed to showcase “Modern Experiences in a Digital World,” our main theme for SXSW. Our house hosted keynotes, customer sessions, live music, and activities all aligned to four experiences: Customer, Employee, Citizen, and Creator.

Check out the highlights below and the recap video for a snapshot of our time at the #SAPHouse at South by Southwest!

9,631 SAP House visitors

61 million+ social impressions

1,560 Qualtrics onsite event survey responses

18 SDG Media Zone interviews and panel discussions

125 pairs of Steph Curry 5 shoes donated to the Girl Scouts, who will pass them along to girls in underserved communities through local outreach programs

Four SXSW-sponsored keynotes, three showcases: SAP and Under Armour Basketball Experience, Under Armour Connected Technology Running Game, and the Smart Kicker

17 sessions and special activities, including Resume of the Future Experience with SAP SuccessFactors; Transparency from Ocean to Table with Bumble Bee Foods; The Circular Economy 2030; Crack the Code with SAP Leonardo; The VIVO Customer Experience: Secure Data-Sharing Demo; The Sustainable Fashion Agenda Breakfast; Human Revolution Party hosted by the SAP SuccessFactors team; SAP NS2 Service and Innovation Reception with special guest J.R. Martinez, and more

Four featured customers: Under Armour, American Airlines, Girl Scouts, and Bumble Bee Foods

Mentioned by the Harlem Globetrotters, Katie Couric, and SXSW channels on social media

Launch of the FQ App with the SAP Next-Gen program and The Female Quotient

Debut of SAP’s first commissioned piece of artwork for the Gallery of Purpose: “PowHERful,” created by artist Markus Sebastiano

Our first appearance at this landmark event was a huge success, with 9,631 visitors. The SAP House at Trinity & Second was abuzz with unforgettable moments, experiences, and memories in the making — seen through the strong social campaign that trended highly on Twitter throughout the weekend with more than 61 million social impressions. We even had a few special guests stop by the house, including The Today Show, Harlem Globetrotters, and Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, and other government officials. What an amazing platform for our brand! We are so grateful for the hard work and commitment put forth by our team to make this event possible.

Thank you to all those out there who stopped by the #SAPHouse. We hope you had fun and walked away loving SAP as much as we do!

Alicia Tillman is chief marketing officer of SAP.

]]>Your Customer Support Experience Is Your Brandhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/customer-support-experience-is-brand/
Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:20:14 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=154749If it’s true that experience is the market differentiator, then customer support is where the rubber hits the road for pretty much every company’s brand promise.

The big support issue is not about machines replacing people. It’s even less about separate annual surveys gauging customer or employee satisfaction. Every company, whether they’re selling shoes or software, needs to connect all the information under the hood – product development, marketing, sales, support, and employees – to make it all go to the customer’s satisfaction.

Before my car engine analogy goes into overdrive (sorry!), let’s step back for a look at the trends, meaning the super powerful technologies behind the experience imperative. With the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, Big Data, and more, IDC researchers predicted 10 percent of companies will begin to integrate personalized brand promises into the customer experience. These analysts also predicted 30 percent of companies will exploit AI and advanced customer analytics to suggest innovative experience actions that deliver value from a segment, persona, or individual customer perspective by 2021.

Great Customer Support Can’t Happen in a Vacuum

SAP plans to introduce a new, industry standard for customer support in 2019, transforming the customer experience.

For a professional take on how these trends translated to customer support, I reached out to Andreas Heckmann, global senior vice president and head of Support Delivery for SAP Digital Business Services. The marriage of experience data with operational data was top of mind for Heckmann. He said there’s a straight line from the experience of the employees to that of the customers. No doubt this fueled SAP’s recent acquisition of Qualtrics, a leading experience management company.

“If you have the right support strategy, you will see the customer experience improve alongside the employee experience,” said Heckmann. “You can’t do one thing at the expense of the other. You need to continuously measure the experience of both groups simultaneously, and on an ongoing basis. We will use Qualtrics to measure the experience of our internal support team alongside our customer’s, to track how we’re moving ahead.”

Next-Gen Support Gives Customers More Control

In many ways, customer support is at a major flash point. People won’t stand for “ping ponging” between unhelpful, time-wasting support points. What has fueled heightened expectations are, of course, the cloud-based systems that have become increasingly the responsibility of vendors. Paradoxically, this puts customers firmly in charge, whether they’ve realized it yet or not.

“Customers shouldn’t have to ask the same questions or tell the vendor they have the same problem over and over,” said Heckmann. “Customers should expect the vendor’s support to inform them about what they need to know. The next generation of support takes proactivity to another level. New customers with new problems will be the only ones reaching out to the vendor.”

AI Brings Faster, Delightful Experiences

Most customers in every industry have been interacting with AI and machine learning algorithms, and SAP’s are no exception. Customers who visit the company’s redesigned support website get immediate recommendations to solve their problems.

“Using AI, the system finds and shares the best answer based on a quick historical search for similar problems that often have happened before,” said Heckmann. “We’ve also begun using AI to intelligently translate highly specific documents and other content into the local language. This is important in a cloud-based environment, where we serve a growing population of line-of-business users. They expect support in their own language.”

How to Achieve Big, Audacious Goals

Heckmann was proud of SAP’s recent awards ─ and rightly so. The online support section on sap.com just received an armload of awards from siteIQ eBusiness Index, notably ranking first place for usability. It’s the highest recorded score among a group of admittedly stellar companies. Other recent prestigious benchmarks included the 2018 Technology Services Industry Association’s (TSIA) Best Practices in Support Services STAR award, and being named to the Association of Support Professionals’ annual list of the Top Ten Best Support Websites. Most recently, SAP Support won two Silver Stevie awards: one for Innovation in Customer Service for Next-Generation Support, and another in Best Use of Technology in Customer Service for Schedule An Expert.

When I asked Heckmann how SAP did all this, here’s what he told me: “We challenged ourselves to help customers quickly find what they need so they can deliver the best experience to their customers, and we wanted external validation for SAP Support as the best in the industry. In 2019, we plan to introduce a new industry standard for support, reaching out to customers, telling them about a problem they didn’t realize they had, and solving it for them.”

Customer support as we know it today is doomed, and people on both sides of it couldn’t be more delighted.

Follow me: @smgaler

]]>The New SAP MaxAttention: Redefining the Business that Technology Builthttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/new-sap-maxattention-redefining-business-technology-built/
Wed, 13 Mar 2019 12:15:50 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155961If you ever watch a house being built, you will find that it goes through a series of standardized steps. Site preparation, foundation construction, framing, window and door installation, roofing, siding, insulation, drywall and trim, painting, electrical, plumbing, and flooring – this is just a small glimpse into the work involved.

Over time, as a family expands and evolves, that “finished” house changes as, for example, new rooms are added, existing living areas are combined, or new utility and digital systems are integrated to make life easier and more comfortable.

The same is true for today’s companies. Some start as a business case, built from the ground up with technology and continue to advance. Meanwhile, others not created initially through technology are using digital innovations to create differentiating business models, strengthen operational performance, and move beyond what’s possible today.

But no matter what, at the core of a successful digital transformation is a set of standardized practices that engineer evolutionary modifications and connect them to expected outcomes. For our customers, that approach is found in the New SAP MaxAttention program, which provides a clear strategy for moving step-by-step toward fulfilling their digital vision.

New SAP MaxAttention: Blueprint for the Intelligent Enterprise

With the New SAP MaxAttention program, you have the guidance, advisory, support, and expertise needed to acquire the intelligent processes, analytics, and user experiences to stay competitive with agility, flexibility, and speed. The program provides a premium service and support experience through a holistic engagement model, a comprehensive service portfolio covering all SAP solutions and deployment models, and a full set of services that adapt efficiently to your business needs and drive the right business outcomes for your company – covering the entire path towards becoming an intelligent enterprise.

SAP MaxAttention helps you navigate 10 focus topics:

Innovation services: Innovation efforts can be accelerated with less risk by taking advantage of strategic and tailored support and expertise that meets you where you are in your innovation maturity – from blending emerging technologies with established applications and processes to innovating wholly new on the edge to innovating at scale.

Co-/Design: The industry-driven service offerings provide an approach to design and implementation based on value delivery and next practices across the entire engagement lifecycle for customers transitioning into an intelligent enterprise.

Architecture planning: Holistic strategic guidance helps determine a specific, future-proof architecture and multiyear road map driven by the your business and IT strategy and in alignment with the SAP product vision.

Implementation support: A systematic approach that accelerates the implementation and simplifies the transformation of SAP solutions – both in the cloud and on-premise – to deliver resilient, sustainable, and flexible solutions quickly and with less risk.

Analytics and data management: Unlocking the value of data and driving new analytics within the your organization helps accelerate data and insights and guides next-generation edge scenarios in areas such as machine learning, predictive analytics, cloud environments, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Cybersecurity and compliance: Demonstrating which data and system protection topics are crucial helps you find more cost-effective ways to meet compliance requirements and close security gaps quickly.

Platform-as-a-Service and DevOps: A set of tools, knowledge, best practices, and expert guidance for creating an enterprise cloud architecture that connects people, processes, system data, and analytics.

Accelerated support: From personalized incident management to special-purpose elements, the goal is to generate or deliver additional support value.

Explore 10 Focus Topics of the Intelligent Enterprise

Over the next few weeks, we’ll offer a real-world view of these focus topics that can help your business acquire the foundation and capabilities of an intelligent enterprise. Bookmark the series landing page and check it each week. In the meantime, read our overview of the New SAP MaxAttention program, “Customer Success for the Intelligent Enterprise,” to discover the opportunities ahead for your business. And for more information, reach out via email at maxattention@sap.com.

Christian Leja is director of SAP MaxAttention Solution Marketing. Follow him on LinkedIn.

]]>Showcasing Diversity in Tech: Women in Data Sciencehttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/wids-silicon-valley-showcasing-diversity-in-tech/
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 15:45:57 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156072Last week, more than 150 technology leaders convened at the SAP campus in Palo Alto, California, to talk about diversity, technology, and business development at the Women in Data Science (WiDS) Silicon Valley @ SAP event.

Jenny Lundberg, senior director of Developer Relations at SAP, has more than 20 years of experience working with new products and technologies like SAP Mobile Platform, Duet Enterprise software, SAP Gateway technology, and SAP Cloud Platform. While presenting, she shared insight into the importance of events like it and why they are key to increasing the pipeline of female leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers, as well as and why SAP needs to be a part of that discussion.

Passionate about SAP, technology, and paving the way for women in tech roles, Lundberg sees WiDS Silicon Valley @ SAP as a safe place for women to speak and present on various tech-related topics. And while the event – and certainly the conversations that come from it – is open to everyone, speaking roles are reserved for women only. According to a 2018 survey by event software company Bizzabo, women make up only 22 percent of speakers at tech events. As WiDS continues to gain popularity and traction, hopefully that number will go up.

“It’s a very supportive environment and it connects women from different data science disciplines,” Lundberg said. “When you bring that together, you make new connections and innovations are created. An event like this that is driven by women and executed by women reminds me of Rosie the Riveter and the ‘We Can Do It’ attitude.”

Under the direction of Ann Rosenberg, senior vice president and global head of the SAP Next-Gen program, Lundberg and the rest of the Business Women’s Network at SAP Silicon Valley found that having WiDS Silicon Valley @ SAP to be a perfect fit. At the inaugural event in 2017, SAP Next-Gen organized 24 satellite events in 20 countries, where women leaders from SAP and partners inspired more than 3,000 participants, including students, professors, startups, and industry partners, to join the movement of bringing women into data science. This year, between the official Global WiDS event and 150 regional events, it was reported to have reached more than 100,000 participants.

“It’s about showing that SAP plays an important part in data science,” said Lundberg. “We have artificial intelligence, machine learning, Big Data, and so many other technologies right here at SAP Silicon Valley that teams are using in solutions to build out the Intelligent Enterprise. I wanted to showcase what we can do.”

To Lundberg and plenty of others at SAP, it’s important to have women data scientists because “it’s a field where women’s strengths are needed.” According to Lundberg, the role needs lots of creativity, problem solving, ethical thinking, and cross collaboration, which women are good at doing. She wants the trend to be that women in data science becomes more mainstream; she doesn’t want to see women moving out of the field. Lundberg’s hope is that more women in the field begets more women in the field. Not only that, but if women don’t see other successful women data scientists, they won’t want to make that investment.

“If you don’t identify with that group, it’s not relatable,” said Lundberg. “We need to continue having successful women serve as role models so that we can continue coming up with new innovations and ideas and start new companies. Last year and this year, we had many students coming to our event where we discussed opportunities and internships. They saw we had amazing women here and want to be part of that.”

At WiDS Silicon Valley @ SAP, it’s largely about showcasing how much women in the field know and what they can do. “It’s important for men to be a part of this, too,” said Lundberg. “Diverse teams win the game. We innovate with all genders, background, and ethnicities. Together, these amazing backgrounds can create something bigger.”

To summarize the day, Lundberg provided some calls to action for the participants:

]]>ERP at Simplon: How It All Beganhttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/erp-simplon-how-it-began/
Tue, 12 Mar 2019 13:15:30 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=156007Simplon’s story begins in 1930, when Josef Hämmerle opened a bike shop in the Austrian town of Hard on the shores of Lake Constance.

This is the first in a four-part series about business management using a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution and the opportunities this creates. Here, we look back to a time when computers were unheard of and clouds were simply masses of water vapor in the sky.

In the 1950s, as the popularity of road bikes was rising, Hämmerle and his sons Kurt and Heinz were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the models that manufacturers were asking them to sell. They decided to build their own bikes to incorporate their own quality and design ideas. In 1961, they founded Simplon, choosing to name the company after the Simplon Pass in the Swiss Alps partly because Swiss-made items were known for their quality.

By the end of the 1970s, the Hämmerles had produced an entire range of road bikes and established their brand in the Austrian market. They designed the bike frames themselves and third parties manufactured them. In 1981, Gerhard Zadrobilek won the Tour of Austria bike race with a Simplon bike.

Since then, the company has blossomed into a small but mighty market player that builds bikes for those people who like to push themselves — and their bikes — to the limit.

Premium products come at premium prices. “That is why our prices have to be transparent and justified,” explains Markus Geiger, director and CFO of Simplon. “Because one of the questions customers ask is ‘Why are the bikes so expensive?’”

Lightest Frame Weighs Merely 717 Grams

One of the answers is because the bikes are so light. When it comes to performance bikes, only a few of Simplon’s models have aluminum frames; almost all the others are made of carbon. The lightest one of the road bikes weighs just 717 grams. Back in 2017, Simplon was one of the first companies to bring an e-bike onto the market that weighed less than 20 kilos.

The top end of the market is growing strongly and Simplon wants to grow, too. Currently, the company builds around 12,000 bikes per year, but this number is expected to reach 30,000 in the future.

Geiger is confident that the demand is there. “And we have the resources and logistics to be able to keep up,” he says. But processes need suitable IT tools to be able to handle the changes. Simplon didn’t have those until October 2017.

But it’s not just about growing the company, it is also about being able to deal with two developments disrupting the bike market. The first is the trend — or the triumph — of e-bikes. In 2015, 10 percent of Simplon’s bikes were e-bikes and this is expected to rise to 60 percent in 2019.

It Takes More Components to Build an E-Bike

The shift to e-bikes represents huge challenges for the entire organization — for bike configuration and the logistics behind it, for bills of materials, and so on — because it takes significantly more parts to make an e-bike than a traditional bike. The company must be able to order, store, stockpile, and use these parts. Manufacturing an e-bike is also much more complex. While it takes around two hours to assemble a conventional road bike, assembling e-bikes takes around three-and-a-half to four hours. The company can only manage these changes if its processes can handle them.

The same applies for the second disruption, which is just as radical as the first: online shopping. For a long time, selling bikes on the Internet was considered virtually impossible, because they would need to be delivered in big, heavy boxes, and because not everyone wants to assemble a bike and then adjust it to be able to ride it. The aversion to selling over the Internet quickly vanished when a large German manufacturer successfully tested the process.

For Simplon, the exact set-up of a bike is extremely important because every bike is unique. This philosophy does not suit an online sales model, which is why the company decided to sell its products only through a network of roughly 350 dealers, which then set up and adjust the bikes for customers.

Simplon bikes are not just unique, they are also customizable. “Our configuration model introduces a level of complexity similar to that in the car industry,” says Geiger.

Body Scanning at 40 Dealers

The Internet is a platform especially well placed to enable bikes to be configured. Customers can customize Simplon’s bikes on its Web site, but instead of the bike being sent to the customer directly, it is delivered to a nearby dealer, who then adjusts the bike for them. And for those customers looking to make their dream bike even more unique, 40 of the dealers offer a digital body scanning service that adapts bikes to their riders.

There was no shortage of challenges for Simplon’s ERP system when, in 2016, the company began to future-proof its structures using the SAP Business ByDesign solution.

Next week, we look at ERP at Simplon before the project started and why Geiger and his colleagues chose this solution.

]]>How to Better Build Trust When Every Sale Is a Promisehttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/how-to-better-build-trust-every-sale-promise/
Mon, 11 Mar 2019 13:15:53 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155952Delivery is a promising frontier for retail, but without a satisfying customer experience — or a deeper connection with the customer — each parcel dropped on a doorstep can be a dead end. Going forward, every sale will be a promise, and each delivery will be an opportunity to build trust.

“There will be vibrant delivery services… you can see a full delivery system where online and data is the most important part of it — what you want to buy and how you buy it,” Recode Co-Founder and Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher said onstage at NRF 2019. “And I think if you don’t have that relationship, that data relationship, with your consumer, you’re going to have a much more difficult time competing.”

Every interaction with the customer — across all touch points — is an opportunity to establish and nurture that relationship. So forward-thinking organizations are exploring in the best ways to connect with customers and build trust.

Connecting With Customers on Their Terms

“Retail will always be here… [but] it’s going to be about the experience,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said during an NRF keynote. “We’re investing in the future, we’re really connecting with the customer… and we’re doing it on their terms.”

“That’s the trust that we’re going back to,” Simon Harmgardt said. “Now [the customer] can trust that he can make that meal for his girlfriend for their anniversary.”Connecting with customers on their terms can require a savvy combination of machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and other technologies, which help create new business models and improve the customer experience (CX). For instance, farms and retailers can deliver groceries to a backwoods cabin with no address, thanks to a mobile device with location services enabled, as SAP demonstrated on the NRF showfloor — and the customer can count on delivery within an hour.

“That’s the trust that we’re going back to,” Simon Harmgardt from SAP Canada said on the NRF showfloor. “Now [the customer] can trust that he can make that meal for his girlfriend for their anniversary.”

Focusing on the Right Technologies

“I get pitched all the time with dozens of new technologies, and it’s really about making sure we’re focused on what we’re trying to bring to the customers,” Walmart Executive Vice President and CTO Jeremy King said onstage at an NRF session. “Right now, what’s really working for us is groceries and grocery delivery and pickup.”

Implementing the hottest new technology just because it’s hot and new can seem appealing, but King suggests applying them only where they’ll be the most beneficial. SAP’s showfloor demonstration, for example, used blockchain to help customers verify that vegetables are organic and freshly harvested, and to track an order’s delivery.

“In the places where [blockchain] is really good, we can make a dramatic difference in making sure items are fresh,” King said.

Keeping the Promise

“It’s really relevant to any industry that needs tracking logistics for making sure that their products are sourced in the way that their consumers require,” SAP’s Allie Kibby said. “It’s making that customer promise — and keeping the promise.”

Delivering better experiences based on your customers’ shopping history, preferences and other attributes will increasingly convey tremendous advantages, as Recode’s Swisher noted. And today’s technology is the framework for tomorrow’s successes.

“With the cloud platform, all of these emerging technologies can be leveraged together to create a valuable solution across many industries,” Allie Kibby, SAP presales solution engineer said in on the NRF showfloor. “We have this farm-to-consumer scenario here, but it’s really relevant to any industry that needs tracking logistics for making sure that their products are sourced in the way that their consumers require.

“More and more, our consumers and customers want complete transparency in food sourcing and safety,” says Tony Costa, CIO of Bumble Bee Foods, one of North America’s largest and most iconic seafood brands since 1899. “Thanks to blockchain technology, shoppers will soon be able to gain valuable insights about their fish and how it was sustainably caught by simply scanning a QR code on their mobile phones.”

Creating a Better Planet

According to a recent WEF report on building blockchains for a better planet, experts in the fishing industry believe emerging technologies like blockchain can be used to track a fish from “bait to plate,” providing transparency and better data for decision making and sustainable management.

“We’re very excited about implementing a blockchain solution from SAP for Bumble Bee’s Natural Blue® by Anova® yellowfin tuna product,” says Costa, referring to Anova Food, acquired by Bumble Bee in 2014 and a global leader in sourcing wild-caught and farm-raised fish. “We’re working with a number of partners, including the Indonesian government, suppliers, processors, and NGOs like Fair Trade USA, to trace our tuna from its source in Indonesia to the store in the U.S.”

Handline Sourcing in Clean Water

Costa has made the trip to Ampera Village on Indonesia’s Seram Island several times to meet the men and women behind the Fair Trade Certified fishery, whose livelihoods depend on the catch of the day. As a Fair Trade Certified fishery, fisherman are ensured fair wages and safe working conditions, contributing to the overall protection of the environment and continuous community improvement.

“It is truly an amazing experience to visit these remote Indonesian fishing villages and see how we share a passion for sustainable fishing and commitment to the environment,” says Costa. “When the fishermen return with their catch, the village comes out to celebrate. The fish are taken to the local buying post, where the blockchain begins.”

Jafar, one of the local men who makes his living catching yellowfin tuna for American and Japanese consumers, says he is proud that technology can tell the story of his hard work and attest to the freshness and quality of his catch.

The fishermen’s catch are delivered to the receiving plants, the first scanning point on the blockchain.

“We’re not just selling fish,” explains Robert Tjoanda, owner of the plant and a supplier to Anova, who believes the blockchain project will give him a competitive edge. “The QR code tells the story of the fish — where it came from, how it was processed, who caught it. This kind of information is what separates us and proves our fish comes from clean ocean waters and fair trade conditions.”

Testing for Quality

The story continues in the laboratory, which provides ISO-17025 certification, the highest standard for quality assurance worldwide.

“The results from this laboratory can’t be manipulated because it is an independent entity managing the blockchain information,” Costa explains. “This is why the use of blockchain technology is so important.”

It is important in a world where one in five people eat tuna. Tracking and monitoring the fish that are caught and processed is not possible without technology. Bumble Bee has a long history of sustainable tuna production. As a founding member of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), the company drives a global partnership among scientists, tuna processors, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global conservation organization.

“For us, it’s important that fish are harvested legally in a place where future generations will be able to enjoy the seafood as well,” Costa says. “Our fisheries are managed using science and data, taking into account the impact of fishing on the species and the ecosystem.”

Building Blocks for Trust

According to Don Tapscott, CEO of the Tapscott Group and co-founder and executive chairman of the Blockchain Research Institute, blockchain can be programmed to record not just financial transactions, but virtually everything of value and importance to humankind. This flexibility makes it ideal for the supply chain, where multiple parties come together and are constantly exchanging documentation.

Here’s how it works: Transaction data are bundled into digital blocks. Each new block is linked to the previous block, creating a continuous chain. When a block gets added, the blockchain node sends the data to the network to be verified by all the other nodes, triggering a consensus algorithm for authenticity and coherency. This process ensures that no one can undo the block, remove an old transaction, or create a new block to cover up wrongdoing.

Besides giving the consumer detailed data on the origin of the product, Bumble Bee’s blockchain project also brings together third-party suppliers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) so they can access relevant fishing key performance indicators (KPIs), such as how many fish were purchased by landing site, fisherman, and date, and use a monitoring dashboard to help ensure the data provided by Anova is tamper-proof.

This way, everyone who has ever touched the tuna can be authenticated. But it’s not just about tracking fish from ocean to table. Industry experts and environmentalists believe blockchain can enable DNA barcoding and smart contracts that give specific resource rights to communities or fishers.

While blockchain is still in its infancy, companies like Bumble Bee and Anova are pioneering new technology like SAP Analytics that is not only changing the way goods travel around the world, but positively impacting ecosystems and the lives of the people all the way down the line. And they don’t have to go it alone. SAP has a full suite of Innovation Services to support companies as they discover what is possible with leading technologies.

The new app and dashboard give people a way to drill in and out to see information from different perspectives. The app is based on permissions, so each player only sees data relevant to them, but the chain itself is fool-proof.

“Working with SAP and the SAP Digital Business Services team was the perfect fit,” says Costa. “SAP is one of our most important strategic partners, so the new focus on cloud-based analytics and platforms, coupled with blockchain, helped us envision a new way to embrace technology while keeping the end solutions simple and centered around our users. Since the solution is in the cloud, SAP can focus on the software while we take care of our fishermen and the fish.”

Bumble Bee’s Natural Blue® by Anova® yellowfin tuna can be found at Albertsons, Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, and Safeway stores nationwide in the U.S.

Together, SAP and Bumble Bee continue to innovate and improve upon seafood traceability as more and more consumers demand to know their food is safe and sustainably sourced. This announcement was made at SXSW, taking place March 8-17 in Austin, Texas.

With SAP’s blockchain technology, consumers and customers will be able to easily access the complete origin and history of Bumble Bee Foods’ Natural Blue® by Anova® yellowfin tuna simply by using their smartphones to scan a QR code on the product package. With the snap of a code, the blockchain technology provides instant information about the fish-to-market journey, including the size of the catch, point of capture and the fishing community that caught it, as well as valuable insights to verify authenticity, freshness, safety, fair trade fishing certification and sustainability.

“With SAP, we have the ability to track fish the moment it’s caught and as it travels around the world, telling the story of each tuna while positively impacting ecosystems and the lives of the people all the way down the line,” Bumble Bee Foods Chief Information Officer Tony Costa said. “Bumble Bee has long been an industry leader in tracing its seafood products, and the addition of SAP’s blockchain technology allows us to further elevate our efforts in complete transparency with consumers and customers, providing assurance that their fish is fresh and it’s been sourced fairly according to our commitments to the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation.”

Blockchain technology allows companies such as Bumble Bee Foods to store data and create a tamper-proof supply chain history, which can be shared and seen by each participant. For Bumble Bee, blockchain is the safest possible way to share data between parties because it is incorruptible and verifiable. Bumble Bee is the first food company to incorporate SAP blockchain technology into its production.

“This solution is an example of how blockchains can be used to revolutionize the future of food,” said Oliver Betz, global head and senior vice president of SAP Innovative Business Solutions, part of SAP Digital Business Services. “It creates transparency and traceability across the food supply chain, from the ocean, across the cold chain, to the warehouse, store and our table. When we help enterprises like Bumble Bee to make innovation real, we support the consumer’s need to know and reinforce their faith in the brands they trust.”

SAP Cloud Platform Blockchain enables customers, partners and developers to conveniently use this distributed ledger technology. It allows enterprises to build new solutions, as well as extensions for existing applications across industries and lines of business.

Bumble Bee Foods’ Natural Blue by Anova fair-trade certified ahi tuna steaks can be found in a 12 oz. bag at retailers nationwide including Albertsons, Hy-Vee, Price Chopper and Safeway.

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, headquartered in San Diego, is North America’s largest branded shelf-stable seafood company, offering a full line of canned and pouched tuna, salmon, sardine and specialty protein products marketed in the U.S. under leading brands including Bumble Bee®, Anova®, Brunswick®, Snow’s®, Wild Selections® and Beach Cliff®, and in Canada under the Clover Leaf® brand.

Bumble Bee’s mission is to provide healthy and nutritious products and meal solutions that are sourced sustainably. The company actively promotes the responsible stewardship of global fisheries resources and is a founder of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) — a global partnership of scientists, tuna processors and WWF, the global conservation organization.

As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 425,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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]]>Ethics Are the New Aestheticshttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/ethics-are-new-aesthetics/
Fri, 08 Mar 2019 14:15:20 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155348Veganism, a diet that includes no animal products, was once a fringe practice. Today, it’s quickly becoming mainstream.

From 2014 to 2017, the number of vegans in the US rose 600 percent, to six percent of the population. In the UK, veganism is up 350 percent in the same time frame. And, research predicts that China’s vegan market will grow more than 17 percent between 2015 and 2020. This shift may be driven in part by health concerns, but most people who go vegan say they’re doing so because they’re concerned about the environment and/or animal cruelty. Indeed, some vegans opt to give up any product, edible or not, that might exploit animal labor.

Ethics as an integral part of the customer experience isn’t a new trend. British abolitionists protested the transatlantic slave trade by boycotting slave-grown sugar, first in 1791 and again in 1820. But ethical purchasing decisions are rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception, around the world and across industries. One in three consumers now choose brands based on their social and environmental impact.

This shift is incontrovertibly driven by digital transparency, which provides consumers with more information about the problems the world faces and the impacts of their individual choices. The more they know about companies, supply chains, sourcing and manufacturing processes, and so forth, the more easily they can apply their ethical standards. And in so doing, they’re not only expressing their own ethics, but they’re encouraging others to adopt them and insisting that companies respond to that demand.

This is giving birth to “moral design,” a new approach to business in which companies consider and adjust the outcomes of their work both to do good and to minimize harm. Essentially, moral design embeds ethical considerations into business decisions that were once just based on price or aesthetics. Plastic bags, for example, are convenient and inexpensive, but as the second worst kind of plastic in the sea, they’re also death to the sea turtles who mistake them for food.

Even fashion, which is inherently driven by trends and aesthetics, is seeing an opportunity to combine profits with ethics through moral design. Adidas, for example, has partnered with Parley, a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting the oceans, to create a line of shoes and sportswear made from recycled plastic waste recovered from beaches. Adidas Parley is one of the company’s fastest-growing lines as well as a testing ground for the company’s plans to eliminate all virgin plastic from its supply chain.

Increasingly, customers want companies to weave ethics into not just what a product is but how it’s made, distributed, and used throughout its life cycle. While this may seem like a challenge, it’s also an opportunity for companies planning a customer experience that fulfills the deep human desire for meaning. A company that can honestly claim that its moral compass guides its products, services, and processes is a company that’s proving it understands the importance of ethics not as a marketing tactic but as an effective business model for a complex future.

SAP worked with more than a dozen industry experts to uncover five trends that will determine the customer experience over the next decade. The Future Customer Experience: 5 Essential Trends report examines each of these trends and offers recommendations for how brands should respond now to prepare.

David Jonker is lead of the Global Thought Leadership team at SAP.Michael Rander is global research director for Future of Work at SAP.

]]>SAP Celebrates International Women’s Day 2019: Eight Leaders, Four Questionshttps://news.sap.com/2019/03/sap-celebrates-international-womens-day-2019/
Thu, 07 Mar 2019 21:30:49 +0000https://news.sap.com/?p=155523To celebrate International Women’s Day 2019, eight prominent female business leaders at SAP share their secrets to success. Get a glimpse into how they drive business and hear their best pieces of advice.

On International Women’s Day, we‘ve asked some of our female leaders from around the globe to share their insights on doing business in a challenging world. Some operate in countries facing instability or regions that are vastly diverse while others work in markets where SAP is not a known brand. All are dealing with customers, societies, and governments that are facing digital transformation.

These women are exceptional leaders, including SAP Executive Board Members Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan and SAP Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer Judith Williams. In the regions, Josephin Galla drives business at an unprecedented pace in one of South East Asia’s tiger economies. Hoda Mansour is the first female managing director of a multinational software company in Egypt. Cristina Palmaka has kept SAP business thriving in Brazil despite continuous political and economic upheaval. Cathy Smith, the first female leader of SAP Africa, is driving the digital transformation of a fast-growth continent in transition. And Kirsten Sutton at SAP Labs Canada is at the forefront of technological innovation.

Q: In driving SAP’s business, what do you find most exciting or most challenging?

Adaire Fox-Martin: The biggest challenge — but also the biggest opportunity — in my regions is their inherent and wonderful diversity. There are 120 countries, which means more than 120 cultures, more than 120 languages, and millions of points of view. We need to understand that communications should be driven by the context of our audience. This requires a sensitivity to the needs of our audience, openness to change, and a broad world view. In my role, I spend a large amount of time on the road, because it’s the only way of meeting, getting to know, and understanding our customers, our partners, and our employees. That’s a priority for me and enables what I hope is a valuable two-way dialogue.

Jennifer Morgan: A big part of my role is to stay on the pulse of the technologies and trends that are affecting our business and brand out in the marketplace. Our customers are looking to SAP to guide them through their transformation journeys and to give them savvy advice on what their future might look like. With so much happening across the business and geopolitical landscape, the challenging part has been pushing our customers — and our employees — to lean into the unknown and to disrupt to stay ahead.

Hoda Mansour: In our headquarters for the region, we enjoy a massive diversity of more than 50 nationalities, which brings a lot of excitement in our daily activities. The most challenging aspects are the lack of stability in some parts of the region as a result of the political situation.

Cathy Smith: Every aspect of my leadership skills has been stretched and tested. Nurturing and growing a business is tough enough, but when you are doing it in an environment fraught with obstacles, many of which are unforeseen and even surreal, it’s a whole different story. What makes it exciting is that as a team, we always come up with a solution centred on doing what is right.

Cristina Palmaka: I’m excited about creating value and helping customers transform to compete in the new digital economy. For me, the challenge starts with our own transformation and ensuring we have the right people who can articulate SAP’s strategy.

Q: How do you open doors for others?

Morgan: I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have sponsors and mentors that have been there to support me every step of the way. Our workforce is changing, and that also requires us to think differently about how we inspire, motivate, and retain talent. I’ve always believed in the power of reverse mentorship because many times I learn more about what’s happening within and outside the four walls of our company from those who are just starting out in their careers.

Galla: Helping others grow is an imperative for me. I also encourage my team to use reporting lines only when needed. That way they can reach out to my superiors and build the confidence and the network they need to grow their careers.

Palmaka: Our brand helps open doors. When I enter a customer meeting, I take SAP’s global reputation into the room. To open doors for others, we use a shadowing approach here in Brazil. This is not expensive, but inspires people, opens up new possibilities, and gives them new ideas about how to develop.

Williams: I’m one of the mentors for our startup founders within SAP.iO. We are helping these startup companies grow to become global companies. If we can make sure that the next generation of leaders includes women and people of color and a more diverse ecosystem it will have a big impact on our community.

Q: What is the best piece of advice you’ve received and what is the best piece of advice you’d like to share with others?

Fox-Martin: When I first became a manager, a colleague said to me, “Now that you are a manager, never forget what it feels like to be managed.” This simple remark really struck home with me. I try to remember in every engagement — and particularly in the challenging ones — what it feels like to be the person on the other side of the conversation. And I particularly love something Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright, said about the need to be yourself, because “everyone else is already taken.” It’s a reminder that we need to ground ourselves around our authentic core to be credible to others.

Morgan: After a particularly bad quarter, a former mentor of mine said, “Things are never as good as they seem, and they’re never as bad as they seem.” All of us have highs and lows in our professional and personal lives, but I always try to keep them in perspective. I like to tell people to look on the bright side of things and to surround themselves with people who inspire them, because your path will always take you where it’s meant to be.

Smith: My advice for others: Remember that the sun will rise tomorrow. Nothing is ever that bad, so remember how you respond to situations today. Know your North Star and be guided by that. The world is complex, and it can be really tough out there. You need to remain centered.

Mansour: You need to enjoy the journey and your enjoyment will only depend on your attitude, persistence, and resilience to achieve your goals and motivate everyone around you.

Sutton: Every interaction matters. When you realize that, then it affects everything — how you talk to people, how you react to them, how you handle conflict, how you sign your emails: everything. You never know when the person you’re interacting with will become your friend, boss, or a customer.

Williams: Say yes to opportunity. I made a decision 15 years ago that I would start saying yes even if I didn’t know where it would take me. Some people have careers that are a straight line; mine has zigged and zagged. Life isn’t always what you expect so when you say yes to things, you’ll learn new things, and find you don’t know yourself as well as you thought.

Q: How do you balance the pressures of your job?

Fox-Martin: I love my job; it’s part of the fabric of my life. I love this company and the people who work here. I appreciate the opportunities we have to make a difference for our customers, their customers, our partners, and our communities. There are always ups and downs, but if I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. It’s that simple.

Galla: I know it sounds like a Facebook meme, but I chose a job that I don’t need a vacation from. Meaning we all have a choice when we pursue our careers. I was always aware that the job comes with pressure. If I do need to de-stress, I do sports.

Sutton: I never use the word balance. The hardest thing is to stay focused when you’re busy. But I really try to always remain present and in the moment.

Adaire Fox-Martin is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Global Customer Operations. | Jennifer Morgan is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Global Customer Operations. | Josephin Galla is managing director of SAP Vietnam. | Hoda Mansour is managing director of SAP Egypt. | Cristina Palmaka is managing director of SAP Brazil. | Cathy Smith is managing director of SAP Africa. | Kirsten Sutton is managing director of SAP Labs Canada, and Global Head of Engineering of SAP Jam. | Judith Williams is head of People Sustainability and chief diversity and inclusion Officer SAP.